


All This Venatori Nonsense

by Checkerbox



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Gen, M/M, Venatori!Dorian, m rating is to be safe for the violence and themes, really it's the same dorian except one very key thing happened differently, slightly morally dubious inquisitor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-02-04 12:38:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 100,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18604696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checkerbox/pseuds/Checkerbox
Summary: The Inquisition has more enemies than they can shake a stick at, but it seems one particular cultist has caught the Inquisitor's eye.





	1. Sit in Judgment

The tension in Skyhold's judgment hall right before a prisoner was brought before the high Inquisitor had lately become so thick that it could be sliced with a knife and served as hors d'oeuvres.

In the beginning, when the first decrees had been passed down upon enemies of the Inquisition, there were only a handful of onlookers to witness it. The throne had been the same dusty, battered old thing that they'd found soon after arriving at Skyhold, and the prisoners had ranged from disgraced mayors of tiny villages to Avvar chieftans throwing goats. The Inquisitor, garbed in a simple, rough brown jacket clearly meant to indulge his fabric-wrecking habit of climbing all over Skyhold when the mood took him, would listen to his Antivan adviser's presentations with his eyes half-lidded and his cheek resting on the palm of his black-gloved hand. Sometimes a member of his inner circle might be present on the sidelines, a lithe elf girl in tattered clothes sitting on the balcony above with her legs swinging, or a beardless dwarf with entirely too much chest hair showing writing the occasional note and saying to himself, "this is good shit".

There was no room for anything like that now.

The hall was packed so full of spectators and supporters that the only room to walk and idle was the central strip through which a pair of guards dragged the latest candidate for the chopping block. Not that Inquisitor Trevelyan was usually keen on cutting off heads when a former enemy could be repurposed into an asset, but in this case it seemed only inevitable. The previous captive, a Tevinter Magister responsible for the corruption of the Gray Wardens, among other crimes, had been summarily executed without delay just two days before. Onlookers would testify to the clear satisfaction that their leader had taken in carrying the deed out.

They were expecting more of the same.

This prisoner had been a much larger thorn than that, for far longer. His death toll, against the Inquisition personally, surely ranked in the thousands by now. Several members of the gathered crowd took at least one step back as he was brought through, murmurs rippling in the hall at the mere sight of him.

His attire was unlike that of the magister from before, ominous but also rather dazzling. Midnight black fabric complemented by blood red accents, held together by straps with shining silver buckles and clasps. The extra material draped his form rather heavily, but only on one side--his left shoulder was bare, arm covered in bands and jewelry that sparkled with daylight streaming in through Skyhold's windows. Just small elements of the design, a twisting snake up his stomach, pointed lines around his neck, suggested the cult that he belonged to.

Josephine stepped forward, papers in hand. She passed an uneasy glance to the side before focusing all her attention on the Inquisitor at the throne.

"I am sure this case requires little introduction for you, Your Worship. Needless to say, nearly everyone here has suffered as a result of this man's actions, and his participation in Adamant is merely one in a laundry list of crimes. It is, frankly, miraculous that we managed to capture him at all, much less alive."

More murmurs. The prisoner was smirking.

"Still, for formality's sake. I present to your judgment Lord Dorian Pavus, son of--

"Yes yes, the prodigal son of house Pavus, co-commander of the Venatori, enemy of all things good and decent, blah blah blah, make with the execution already! Chop chop!" the figure interrupted as he clapped his hands twice, chains around his wrists rattling. The grin on his lips was exaggerated slightly by his mustache, a bit of a cocky swagger in his stance despite being surrounded by armed guards. He watched with delight as he rankled the crowd around him. "Or is your punishment to bore me to death?"

In spite of the affront to his authority, there was a clear glint of amusement in Trevelyan's bright green eyes. He leaned back, crossed one leg over the other and steepled his fingers contemplatively. "Nothing to say in your own defense, Lord Pavus? No ranting speech on your motives?"

"I'm from Tevinter!" Dorian said cheerfully, attempting to pick a bit of lint off his dark outfit despite the restrictions on his movement. "Doing evil deeds is practically _endemic_ to our culture, like slave labor and blood magic! Wouldn't expect you and your little backwater peons to understand."

Few people noticed the slight hysterical note that entered his voice when he uttered the words "blood magic".

He continued, glancing around at the eyes that were upon him. "No, I rather think you have the best recourse easily available to you, Inquisitor. Lucky duck. I wish my own decisions were so easy. Though as a final speech I suppose I could let you know that it has been quite _fun_ , going toe to toe with you."

"Your colleague had quite a bit to say about his glory with the Elder One."

"Oh yes, I'm sure he did. I don't know if you noticed, but Erimond is a bit of an ass. Or, rather, _was._ " Despite the cavalier attitude, it was clear that the prisoner was growing tense. His shoulders had started to tighten, shifting in his spot with a clear intent to pace that the guards flanking him kept from happening. Still, his voice never wavered. "What is it you barbarians do here in the South, anyway? Decapitation?"

Trevelyan gave him a lazy grin. "I _could_ have you made tranquil."

That got to him. The mage barked out a laugh to hide the sudden shot of terror that showed itself quite plainly on his face, the tremor under his words. "Well then--well then you really _would_ be a barbarian, wouldn't you?"

"Dorian Pavus." Trevelyan sat up straight, eyes cold, hands resting on the sides of his throne in fists. "Taking into account the nature of your crimes and your affiliation with the Elder One, as well as what I have personally witnessed of your deeds at Haven, Emprise du Lion, Halamshiral, and Adamant--"

He paused, head tilting just slightly to the side. Like a cat assessing a mouse, or perhaps just someone who enjoyed the drama of being in charge milking the moment where all had hushed to listen to his words.

"--I have decided that you will be conscripted into the Inquisition to use as against your former Venatori brethren."

A surprised, displeased murmur swept through the room. Dorian said nothing, at first. He merely stared, mouth open slightly, chains rattling again as his shoulders went slack.

"I…What?" he finally managed.

"The information you hold on them as their former commander must be invaluable." Trevelyan stood, waving his hand dismissively. The guards present grabbed the prisoner roughly by the shoulders, shaking him a little. "Take him to the dungeon for now. I have other matters to attend to today."

The guards gave a brief salute and then dragged away an unresisting Dorian, having to push somewhat through the slowly dispersing throng of people. The ambient conversation was a dull roar now, eyes shooting between the prisoner and the Inquisitor, a few voices demanding answers of Josephine, standing there with her papers clutched to her chest as she handed out assurances and a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

A figure cut through the crowd like a sharp blade through a warm throat, a short-haired woman with stern eyes and the Seeker insignia emblazoned on her front.

"Inquisitor, you cannot be serious!" He stopped for her, nonplussed by her anger. It was snap, and common, for her to at least initially take issue with his decisions. "After _all_ he has done--after _Haven_ \--surely you cannot be offering him a chance to redeem himself!"

"I don't waste resources, Cassandra." Trevelyan smiled, a show of white teeth. "Would you have me throw opportunities away out of spite?"

"That--" She huffed, hands on her hips. "No, I did not say that. But this man is _dangerous_. If he should find a way to break free--"

"Then we'll kill him.”

He held her gaze like that as people moved around them, eyes bright. Buzzing voices around them faded, everyone returning to their roles.

Then, he laughed, and clapped her on the shoulder. "You’re just like Cullen. Try not to worry so much."

Leliana was waiting for him in the wings as he left, and as he turned his back to the crowd all mirth dropped entirely from his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. I wanted to wait until I had this all finished before I posted any of it. But, it's taking longer to write than I thought it would, and I really do like this first chapter even just on its own.
> 
> Originally I wanted to write a story about my Inquisitor and his relationship with all of his companions as he goes through the adventure to stop Corypheus. But ultimately, while I like all of them in their own way, it's Dorian I'm really smitten with, and so he's the only one I really have a strong energy to write for. Not to mention, no matter what angle I put it in, a story that's just about the main plot of Inquisition is a story that's already been completed and examined by many people before me, and better too. I'd much rather have an AU of some kind or a story that's before/after established events.
> 
> While I can't imagine I'm the only one to have this particular idea, it's not especially well tread ground and that makes it interesting for me.
> 
> For now, this is a standalone concept piece. If I can finish a rough draft of the rest of it, I'll post it twice a week as I revise. Here's hoping I get it done before my writing muse runs dry.


	2. Once First Burned

Trevelyan, “Herald of Andraste”, agent to the growing Inquisition, could say that he liked celebrations, in general. But this one felt foolish and premature.

He wasn't as good at carrying the fixed scowl and crossed arms that Commander Cullen had adopted by the steps of the Chantry, didn't think it suited his features, and so to the outside world he was just as relaxed and carefree as the rest of them. Even if he didn't join in the dancing. His gloves were on, no one could see the way his hand still burned even though the Breach should have been closed. To them he was happy and relieved, grinning at any who made eye contact with him.

Privately he confided to Cassandra—perhaps the only other person who understood--that he couldn't unwind, physically _could not_. The Breach was closed, yes. But the person who had opened it, this "Elder One", was still a mystery to them. A shadow that they could only glimpse by the ends of his stretching fingers, the actions of followers infecting themselves with red lyrium and plotting to assassinate Empress Celene. This man, or mage, or _whatever_ he was would not be pleased with what they had done.

Would be less than pleased with the fact that Trevelyan had every intention of tracking him down and slicing through his jugular with a razor-sharp arrow.

Leliana had agreed, as well. It was too soon to celebrate. A counter-attack was sure to arrive. Especially with the swirl of clouds portending a blizzard on the horizon. If the air was still, it was because the wind was gathering to blow out their fires.

He would not call himself a prescient man, of course, but things did have a tendency to fall neatly into his expectations. It wasn't what he wanted, but amidst the ringing of alarm bells, the attack oncoming, there was some satisfaction in being right. As he darted down from the Chantry building to the walls surrounding Haven people might have called him brave. And he was. But he was also curious, and that—not heroism in the face of dim fear—was the primary emotion coursing through him then.

Others were there too, and he was cheered to see them. Cassandra, Cole, Varric, Solas, Sera, The Iron Bull, Vivienne, Blackwall. The other brave and foolish ones. They could see the marching on the horizon.

The Inquisition’s advisors were talking amongst themselves. Trevelyan ignored them. There was a noise below the tolling of the bells and the anxious murmurs and shouts of scared pilgrims. A soft rap-tap-tap. He tilted his ear. It was at the gate. The knocking was weak, but insistent. From the other side he could hear, faint and strangled by gasping, "Please, someone open this door."

Trevelyan was closest to the gates. He pulled the handle, and suddenly found himself with his arms full of a collapsing young man, skin tanned but face nearly bloodless. He was wearing a yellow uniform of some kind--the exact faction was unfamiliar, but the design work appeared, at least to his eyes, Tevinter in nature.

Behind him was a single corpse. They were wearing a similar outfit, though the clothing on the body was more servile--slate grey, covered in chains, head obscured completely but stomach exposed to the soft snow upon which it lay.

"I--I--I came here to--to warn you--" Words seemed to fall out of him in a jumbled mess. Trevelyan held up his face to get a better look at him, frowning at the delirious exhaustion in his sunken eyes. "You're all in danger. You're under attack."

Cullen stepped forward, helping the young man get back properly on his feet. Or at least, on his feet for a moment before he required something to lean on again. Trevelyan frowned, looked down at his free hands, and saw them covered with fresh, dripping blood.

Ah.

"Who are you?"

"--Felix. Felix Alexius." He must have run the entire way over. Felix couldn't seem to regain his breath no matter how he fought for it, struggling to get a complete sentence out. Red was beginning to soak his clothing. "But that's not important. My father--he recruited the rebel mages in Redcliff into the--the Venatori. A Tevinter supremacist cult. They serve the Elder One. They're here to kill you."

The young man had a gift for brevity, if nothing else.

“We can see that.” The nature of his wounds was becoming more evident by the moment. Cullen tried to hold him up more firmly, to guide him in the direction of where their healers had fled. "Come on, if we don't get that wound seen to, you'll die."

"I'm already dying," Felix spat, pushing Cullen away. He seemed desperate to deliver as much information as possible before his body gave out, looking back to Trevelyan. "They're being led by two mages, one a woman named Calpernia, and the other one--"

The whole earth seemed to shudder around them for a moment. It wasn’t a physical shaking, not the shifting of ground underneath them, but the shimmer and warp of magic. Trevelyan could smell ozone and taste metal on his teeth. Up on the mountain he could see three figures. Two of them were too far away to see properly. The third was tall—at least twice as large as the others, a figure of twisted, mottled flesh and feather pauldrons. The Elder One. …Presumably.

Felix finished his sentence as he returned to using Cullen as a crutch. "--The-the other one is my father's former apprentice. Dorian Pavus. Neither of them will take prisoners."

Neither name was familiar to him. Not that he knew of many mages, outside of his sister, those in his inner circle, and the ones Leliana had reported to be key members of the rebellion. The names “Dorian” and “Calpernia” hadn’t appeared on any of those documents.

No matter.

“So, a bunch of mages, two really powerful ones and one…thing.”

“He’s a magister.” Felix coughed into his hand, came away with something black and slimy. “Or at least he once was. A long time ago. He has the Blight in him. As…do I.”

Trevelyan felt a sudden shock of pity for this stranger he had barely met. How far had he run, only to arrive just a few minutes too late? Only to die slowly in the hands of people he didn't know, far away from anything familiar or safe.

Then the feeling passed. The assault was upon them. No more time to question him now. He turned to Josephine. “Have him taken to a healer.”

“No healer can fix me,” Felix protested, but he was already too weak to resist being taken away. As soon as he was gone Trevelyan turned to Cullen, seeking a battle plan.

The battle plan was to hit back as hard as they could.

Easy to get behind.

“Cassandra, Vivienne, Varric. I need you to hang back, make sure if any of them get through the line that they won’t be able to hurt the non-combatants by the Chantry. Try to herd them all inside.” Scared sheep that they were. “Sera, Blackwall, Bull, defend the North trebuchet, keep it running. Solas, Cole, you’re with me. We’re going to the South trebuchet.”

There was a pause, a stutter in the group as they adjusted to his commands. It grated on him, but he masked his impatience with preparation for battle instead, pulling out his bow and breaking into a run. Despite having grown accustomed most of his life to being the fastest runner around, Solas and Cole managed to keep up with him.

Even if one of them _still wasn’t wearing shoes._

There was a delay between them and their destination where they were under fire from warriors ringed in chains. All three of them were good at avoiding notice—Cole could slip right by them undetected, Solas could enact minor mental wards, and Trevelyan was experienced in skirting people’s gazes. But avoiding their enemies instead of confronting them meant that they would proceed onward to the Chantry, and so they had to waste time cutting them down instead. In that time, the North trebuchet had got off two shots towards the approaching army. It was the only one working.

But the moment the South trebuchet came into his line of sight he could see why it wasn’t firing. Every agent that had been stationed on it was in the process of being sacrificed for the use of the Venatori mages that had taken up position there.

Cole was beside him to his left one moment, and then gone the next. Up on one of the trebuchet’s support beams a Venatori tumbled to the ground, blood spattering from his neck. Solas stopped a good few yards from the other mages, summoning barriers and setting their chained warriors on fire as they approached.

As for Trevelyan, he charged right for the trebuchet’s controls, letting his arrows fly at any who tried to get in his way.

It felt easy. There weren’t a lot of them—clearly those who had just been too fast for the main horde. The mages were the easiest targets, ill-armored and unprepared for physical assaults by someone who knew how to anticipate most basic magical attacks. When they were cleared, he headed up to the aiming mechanism, taking only a brief moment to assess the target that his people had selected before they were ritually slaughtered. Then he gripped the wheel and started turning.

A blast of energy like a sock to the stomach knocked him clean off his feet. He hit the snow with a _crunch_ , feeling thin ice snap above the powder.

The phrase _too easy_ wasn’t one he usually put a lot of stock in—among all his wasting time in his youth anything he actually bothered to put his mind to had been simple, and rarely was there an ulterior reason for it other than quick wit for things that interested him. But life on his estate in Ostwick wasn’t the real world, and he was finding out alarmingly fast that there was nothing out here that was easy unless it had some hidden surprise waiting to clobber him.

The others darted towards him to regroup, Cole kneeling to help him to his feet. As he found his footing again, he got a good look at a line of new Venatori mages and warriors alike, the ones without masks gazing at him with bloodlust so naked he could see it from over here.

Reinforcements.

They stood just slightly behind a man in a black uniform with yellow accents, tailored a little differently from the others to make him stand out; a high collar and sweeping robe instead of pointy hood and poofy trousers, dark leather garb underneath. Studs and clasps gleamed like diamonds amidst the dark. It would have been quite impressive were it not for the two salient facts that he was clearly not properly dressed for the cold, and that Trevelyan was too angry at having his victory disrupted to be very appreciative of _anything_ at the moment. There was cold blue light swirling about his hand, the remnants of a spell.

"Nothing personal!" The man—one of the leaders Felix had pointed out, Dorian, it must be--shouted to be heard over the din of approaching battle, a wicked smile just barely visible on his distant face. "We're just going to crush you now! Sorry! Can't be helped!"

Cole murmured, hat hanging low over his face and nearly covering his confused frown, "He…is sorry?”

“Oh he’s _going_ to be.” He wasn’t seeing red exactly—enemies got in the way, that was what they did. But that smug note in the other man’s voice, the cheerful pitch of his shout, that was…something. Certainly something. He glanced around him. “Cole, Solas—focus on his support. Don’t let them overwhelm us with numbers. They’re here because they want to make room for the rest of the army—they won’t have spares to throw at us.”

Really, it was because he wanted to fight Dorian himself.

Making battle strategies on a whim was not sound, but it was at this point in time the only way he knew how to function in a high-stress situation.

He had never understood the fear the average person seemed to feel about mages, not for most of his life. One could attribute that to his inexperience with any that had any significant magical talent. His sister had been taken away when he was too young to understand that she was capable of more than just casting little balls of light and freezing ponds to slide around on. Most of the mages he’d spoken to at the Conclave were there because they feared getting murdered by a stray shot. And experience in the Hinterlands proved their heads could be cleaved off their shoulders like any other person’s. It was easy to avoid getting hit if you were good at running and jumping, and even if you were too slow it was usually energy blasts that just stung a bit.

But Dorian used lightning and fire, which was cheating.

Darting through the snow, wind whipping around him as his attacks bounced off of a shimmering green barrier glimmering around Dorian’s figure, he cursed himself for the second time since Therinfal for shirking and rejecting so much of his Templar training to play in the woods. So many of his combat skills lately had to be learned on the fly; if only this mage were a stray deer or August Ram. Then he’d have him.

It occurred to him that he _had_ Templars, leashed under the banner of the Inquisition. He spared a look to the main battlefield as Cole felled another of the cannon fodder, saw them taking down mages and being skewered by their shackled warriors. Busy protecting civilians and none to spare for him.

The explosive powder charges that Sera had turned him on to seemed to do some degree of damage—even through the barrier, Dorian had fallen back, cringing and coughing like he’d been burned. But it wasn’t doing _enough_ , not with everything else that was interfering, and so he was loathe to waste it.

As he ran, still idling through his options, he made a quick change of direction and watched in fascination as the ice where he’d been standing just a second before was reduced to sizzling water. He took advantage of the puff of steam to slip away from view, leave the line of fire long enough to get his bearings. Maybe get in some flanking.

“Now now, don’t be like that!” he heard from across the yard, magic rippling through the air once more. “We’ll be at this all evening! Just lay down right there in dirt so I can get this over with!”

The jibe set his blood boiling in a way that was hard to resist, and in spite of himself Trevelyan shot back, a curling snarl of a grin showing his teeth, “Lay down in the dirt! Do you have any idea who you’re dealing with?”

The mage whipped his head around to look right at him. “Do _you?_ ”

“Trevelyan!”

Solas’ cautionary cry came just a second too late to dodge the lightning that arced from Dorian’s staff as he slammed it into the ground, though the barrier he threw up in Trevelyan’s defense was, thankfully, not. It was an unhappy reminder that as much as he’d like to be the sort to taunt his much more powerful enemies, it was better to goad only after they were dead on the ground. He was quick, and precise, and…not good with head-on attacks.

Neither was Solas.

Dorian released his staff, letting it stand straight up in the snow as though suspended, and put his hands together as though to cage a small, sparkling ball of light that became visible through his fingers. The electricity laced around Solas like strings, blocking his movement as one of the remaining enslaved warriors approached, axe held high.

Trevelyan darted towards the warrior, but Solas focused a mind-blast on Dorian instead.

The effect of the spell was immediate, and extreme. Solas darted out of the line of fire as Dorian's magic guttered, losing all finesse and control as the lightning spiraled into a circle of red flames. He fell into a crouch with one hand gripped tightly on his staff like a crutch and the other flying to his temple, spittle dripping from his mouth.

It was a momentary weakness. In the next instant he was back up and coming at them harder than before. But his armor had cracked. And Trevelyan had seen a glimpse of what was inside. In this moment of distraction, he lined up his shot and let the arrow fly.

The steel tip hit true, and Dorian fell back stringing together curses in what was presumably Tevene.

Trevelyan laughed, full of childish glee.

He prepared for another shot, but the opportunity was gone. Dorian had put up his barrier again, and whatever Venatori remained closed rank around him. The air around them grew thick, sizzling energy radiating from the broken circle of mages as Dorian started to cast once more. And despite the ice storm already gathering in the sky above, he could feel brewing thunder.

Then the trebuchet activated.

Like a ghost, Cole stood beneath notice at the wheel, blood-slicked hands nonetheless gripping the spokes tightly. The ball of fire launched through the air, hitting the mountain and sending a wave of snow tumbling down towards the marching force below.

It was hard to describe the satisfaction of watching them be buried in the distance. Quickly squelched by the jolt and pain of electrical shocks, but sort of like hearing the battle roar of the Iron Bull as he, Blackwall, and Sera ran down to provide backup, their job at the North trebuchet completed. And it was entirely unlike the low, guttural rumble that shook the air as Trevelyan ran through crackling snow to see if Cole had actually been injured.

“—It’s alright,” Cole said quickly, voice only loud enough to be heard. In the distance the Venatori were shouting, some of them foolishly remaining to be cut down and the others pulling back. “It’s not my blood.”

He only noticed the spike of anxiety coursing through his limbs as it died in relief. Without responding he glanced out towards the marching forces, seeing stragglers and retreats in a flood of snow. Even the ones who had been attacking him moments before had realized that they were outmatched, even with the benefit of surprise and magic on their side.

Trevelyan turned and smiled at Solas. It was hard not to feel like they’d won, hard to not want to celebrate, to choose _now_ to feel like he’d achieved something.

The guttural rumble came back, louder this time.

That was when he looked up and saw the archdemon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I am...tentatively continuing. I don't have the fic finished, which worries me a little bit, but I have a few chapters done (not all of them in the correct order, albeit) so I think I should be able to make decent progress without leaving people waiting forever. Hopefully. I'm currently at a nice pace. I can't promise weekly updates, but still.
> 
> Just so there's no confusion (it may be clear, it may not), there's two different lines of progression going on in this that will eventually come together closer to the end. The first is after Dorian's capture, and the other, this one, is before it.


	3. Friendly Chat

The Southern barbarians had outfitted him with some sort of anti-magic band on his arm.

At least, that’s what the little dwarf with the rosy-cheeked smile and bouncing step had called it. “Dagna”, he thought her name was; all he knew was that despite the dim glowing of sigils and enchantments on its surface, he could feel no actual impact on his magic from it. Then again, it wasn’t like he’d had the chance to test the thing. If they saw even the slightest hint of a spell from him, he was as good as dead—they’d told him as much. He didn’t bother arguing that he was probably already a dead man.

Skyhold’s prison was far less secure than he’d been expecting, though there were clear signs of construction that suggested they were still in the process of working on it. It was crumbled and drafty, most of the original stone floor in pieces and the individual cells only accessible through wooden attachments that smelled of fresh lacquer. The far wall was in as much disrepair as the floor, leading out only to empty air, though as much of that open space was an archway this seemed intentional.

It rather gave him the feeling that one of these days the floor under his feet in his cell would collapse too, and he’d just go plummeting down to the bottom with no one to care.

Not that he was afraid of heights.

Not at all.

It felt like days between the time the guards dropped Dorian off in his new “home” and the time that he was rousted from the cell to have an “interview” with the Inquisitor, but in reality it had been perhaps only fourteen hours. It just seemed longer because he got barely a wink of sleep that night. Two scowling-faced lackeys of the Inquisition pulled him from his cot, shoved a bag over his head, and brought him up and down all manner of stairs before shoving him into a rickety chair and chaining his wrists to the table in front of him.

Then the bag was removed. He sat at a table with only a single candle in the middle as lighting, the rest of the room swathed in darkness despite the fact that there had been clear daylight in the dungeon. He could barely see a woman standing in the shadows off in the corner, observing, her face hidden by her hood. The Inquisitor was sitting across from him with his hands clasped, calm and curious and just a hint of a smile on his face, the shadows making the softness of his expression recede and return depending on what angle you looked at him. His eyes carried the light of the fire in them.

Intimidating. Or at least, it would be for someone other than Dorian. “You have quite a flair for the dramatic.”

“You’re one to talk.” Trevelyan leaned back in his chair, pose broken as they spoke. There was the slightest curve to his mouth still. “I heard from my people how you fought when you made your way out of the Fade. Tooth and nail, that’s what they said. All without a single hair falling out of place.”

“Of course I did. I had to make it hard for you, after all. I certainly wasn’t going to lay down and slit my throat.”

A mild twitch of his brow, a suppressed furrow. "You could have simply surrendered and saved us all the trouble. There was that option. A good woman’s life might have been spared.”

"You say that as though mercy was something I could have reasonably expected from you." Dorian frowned somewhat deeply, feeling a flush of irritation. "I had fully planned for you to have me killed at Adamant. And when you didn't I thought perhaps you were just trying to make sure your little followers got to watch me die by your hand personally, with all the pomp and ceremony. You can't honestly think I'm a greater asset to you alive than dead."

“And what if I do?”

“You heard the way some of them were cursing you, yes?”

“People have cursed me for a lot less. You learn to tune it out after a while. They’re just upset about their dead little sisters or parents or whatever.” Trevelyan waved dismissively, sounding suddenly very frustrated.

Dorian tilted his head. “So the death toll on innocent lives doesn’t bother you.”

He seemed to prickle at that. “I just don’t see the point of getting all _emotional_ about it. Revenge feels good but only sometimes is it useful. This is not one of those times.” He leaned forward, eyes glinting again. “What _is_ useful to me is the information that you hold. Not just on Corypheus, but the Venatori in general. Not to mention your expertise in thaumaturgy, necromancy, rifts…I’m sure you get the picture. You’ve made yourself far too useful to throw away.”

“I’m _flattered_.” And really, he was. Not by the notion of being used like some commodity by the wishes of an infantile and doomed organization such as this, but by the appreciation of his talents. It was sadly rare among the company that he normally kept. One would think him satisfied by the mere acknowledgment of rank, but even the mages working under him would give him lip every now and then. “But flattery won’t get you everything, I’m afraid.”

“Really? I’m very good at flattery.” The smile came back to the Inquisitor’s face—it was clear he wore it like a shield, a block against any other expression that he could make, but two were playing at that game now and Dorian was clearly far more versed at it than him. “I was hoping the fact that you have literally no other option but to comply would make you more agreeable.”

“Foolish thing, hoping. You’ll always be disappointed.”

If Dorian’s hands weren’t chained to the table he would have leaned back in his chair to play smug, but as he couldn’t he could only arch his shoulders as Trevelyan glanced back to the woman in the corner and gave a light wave of his fingers. As she walked forward, he mentally prepared himself for whatever “persuasion” tactics they might have prepared, but instead all she did was deposit a curled scroll on the table.

“I did think perhaps that you would be less cooperative than some of your more cowardly cohorts. No matter. There’s plenty of time to change your mind yet. Please know that I am not nearly so selfish with sharing knowledge. Let me tell you something you might find personally interesting.” The woman—the spymaster, he figured—returned to her spot near the back. Trevelyan said, "I found your mentor, Alexius."

Something in his stomach tightened. The sort of casual finality behind it, the prying note. _You were close to him, weren’t you? I had him horribly killed. How does that make you feel?_ Such coldly curious eyes the Inquisitor had. "Oh? And where is the old boy? I haven't seen him in months."

“I found him in an old temple to Dumat. He was bound by magic ritual.” The Inquisitor unfurled the roll of parchment from the table, showing the contents to Dorian. It was only a brief look, but he recognized some of it—not in execution but in theory, different parts of spells that he knew, interlocking together.

His stomach turned, though he was careful not to show it on his face. “Interesting.”

Trevelyan turned the scroll around back to himself, frowning over it as though reading. –As though he could understand complex magical scriptures not even written in Common. “It’s all rather complicated but suffice it to say, he was in constant pain. Unable to die. Unable to distort the truth, or withhold it from those who asked. A very…useful state. Do you know why he was like that?”

The response that came from his mouth felt far away. “Can’t imagine.”

"It was a test run. Corypheus was planning to use the same ritual on you, once you had become this…’Vessel’ thing your correspondences keep talking about."

Dorian stared for a moment. The information seemed to sink into him slowly, and then when the full impact of it took root he started laughing. Loud, uncontrollable laughter that made his cheeks wet with mirth, hitching his voice and bracing his hands on the table. Dimly he heard Trevelyan ask, a bewildered note in his tone, "You don't believe me?"

"No, I--" It was hard to talk through so much laughter--eventually he managed to tie it down to giggles, stomach and sides aching. "I _do_ believe you. That's the _funny_ part. It’s the most believable thing I’ve heard in a very long time."

He could tell by the fact that no reply was forthcoming that he’d thrown the Inquisitor for a loop. It wasn’t the first time, and he was sure that if he looked up instead of laughing against the table that he would see an expression of adorable bemusement. For the sake of his sanity, he didn’t look up.

The two of them sat there, neither speaking, until finally they lapsed into silence. Dorian ran his fingers through his hair—messy and now longer than he liked it to be—and sat up once more. He was being watched with those same curious eyes. Eventually he was able to work up the strength to ask, “What did you end up doing with Alexius?”

The Inquisitor sucked on his cheek, glancing away briefly. "I had him…released from his torment. I would have liked to question him further, but Cole insisted."

Oh, Dorian could just imagine the questioning Alexius would have received. He could see the disappointment practically radiating off of the man before him at being denied such a prize sorcerer, a resource like Dorian who couldn’t dance around questions or keep his mouth shut. The boy named Cole—Calpernia hadn’t been able to scare up much on him outside of that name, but he’d been there at Haven at least, and witnessed—albeit hazily—on a few other missions since. Truthfully, Dorian was curious about that himself, adding with a tired smile, "Put that much stock in the words of a demon, do you?"

"Cole is no demon.” Though he didn’t sound absolutely sure.

“Then what is he, pray tell?”

Leliana cleared her throat in the corner. Trevelyan stiffened and withdrew again. “—This conversation isn’t about Cole.”

Dorian laced his fingers together, leaning on his elbows. “No? Perhaps you should get to the point. I might have all the time in the world now but I would _hate_ to think I was wasting yours.”

"Alexius said he failed you. What did he mean by that?"

Something quietly snapped in his chest. Something small and insignificant that had been under pressure for a long time now. He pushed at it, blinking and fighting to keep from letting anything show on the outside. He would not give Trevelyan the satisfaction of seeing that. Failed him. Yes, Alexius had certainly failed him. The comment was no more significant than a remark that the South was cold and muddy. Dorian laughed. "Hoping I’ll suddenly become chatty because you’ve told me something upsetting? I don’t owe you that."

There he saw the stirrings of frustration again, the insistence that the fearsome Inquisitor should be getting his way already. That smile, teeth chipped every so slightly in ways that made them look sharper, couldn’t hide it; it was in the eyes. “We have just established that the cause you allied yourself to would have made you into a slave. And yet you’re still treating me as an enemy?”

“Despite what one of your commonly accepted aphorisms might claim, an enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Besides, while this whole ‘binding ritual’ business is a tad…unnerving, it ultimately means very little, in the grand scheme of things.” It was almost worth it to keep going just to see how Trevelyan’s fingers tightened over the scroll back in his hand, crumpling the parchment. Dorian grinned more broadly. “If I ever get out of here I could probably talk Calpernia into doing this whole 'Vessel' thing instead. She's quite the wide-eyed idealist. I'm sure she'd fall for it."

“You are being remarkably, stupidly stubborn.” He was pouting like a child, how positively delightful. “For a man like you who surely knows when his number is up.”

“Why? Because my loyalties weren’t based on thinking it was all sunshine and rainbows where I was?” The chains hurt as he pulled against them in an attempt at a gesture. “Was that your ace in the hole? Make me feel cheated? Thought I’d betray my principles once you showed me how wicked and deceptive the _darkspawn magister_ was?”

He shouldn’t gloat.

Dorian watched, feeling a hard pit begin to form in his stomach, as Trevelyan’s eyes went cold and his face turned to stone.

“You have already betrayed your principles.”

As they shoved the bag back on his head and dragged him away, he forced himself to keep up even breaths and rattle through his options.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Going at a tentative weekly release for now, at least until I hit a chapter where the rough draft isn't finished.


	4. Sand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a particular song about sand stuck in my head while writing most of this. Apologies.

Sand.

Solas had bound up the entirety of his feet instead of just the arches, finding his bare skin burned by the shifting grains’ radiating heat.

Sand in his boots.

Cole pausing every hundred steps or so to quickly slip off his slipper-like shoes and dump out piles of sand, hat swaying in the breeze that dumped more grains in before he could get them back on.

Sand in his armor.

Vivienne freezing the ground she walked on so that her heels would have something solid to clack against as she strode through, mouth slightly pinched in displeasure and eyes narrow.

Was that a demon? No, it was just sand.

The only place he could walk that didn’t shift and spray under his feet was the patch of ground soaked with the blood of the Lurker that Blackwall had just mercy-killed, already dying and thrashing from a wound that looked ringed with magic burns.

 “I hate sand,” Trevelyan muttered under his breath as he put his bow away, not directed at anyone in particular. “It's coarse and rough and irritating and it _gets everywhere_.”

“It could be worse, Your Inquisitorialness,” Varric said, evidently close enough to hear. He had wrapped Bianca up to keep the sand from getting into her internal components, and was holding the crossbow to him like a swaddled child. “There could be more insects.”

“Don’t you dare go around tempting fate, Tethras.”

They were on the right trail—every so often the distance they crossed would put doubt in his mind, and he’d wonder if they were really in the right place, staring down at Scout Harding’s map in suspicion. But then a landmark would show itself, and he would just have to accept that this place was really just _that_ enormous. Or maybe the sand was just making them _that_ much slower, unable to ride mounts that stumbled and hurt themselves on the uneven ground.

They called it the Hissing Wastes. It was an apt name. The “Wastes” part, in particular.

The only thing that he liked about the place was that all the time spent traveling on foot encouraged conversation between his entourage, something he was quickly growing fond of as their personalities clashed. Trevelyan would eagerly listen, either engrossed in searching an abandoned campsite or pretending to be, as Vivienne cut down Blackwall’s white-knighting about a single cut on her cheek and Varric tried to teach Cole what knock-knock jokes were.

Still though. There was only so much that could compensate for all the blasted _sand._ A part of him had started to view the occasional monster or crew of bandits that came their way out of the bluster as a blessing to break the monotony instead of a danger.

Though it didn’t help when they got both of them at the same time.

The sand was a detriment to his footing as well, ruining his jumps and dodges as he tried to avoid having his face bitten off by a Varghest while he fired arrows. The bandits were some motley assortment in mismatched armor that they’d no doubt stolen from whatever travelers had the misfortune of running into them, but they weren’t poorly trained and had the element of surprise so they couldn’t be cut down immediately.

Blackwall intervened just as the Varghest had swept Trevelyan down with its tail, one of his eyes puffed and purpling. Vivienne was casting, ice crystalizing on the ground beneath them in an intricate geometric sigil, Solas was blasting green light at one particularly persistent, lumbering giant of a man who kept pausing in confusion as he was quickly whittled down by ambient attack magic, and Cole was—

Cole was…

Nowhere to be found.

His heart clenched. Unexpected.

A man with daggers was sprinting for Blackwall as he struggled to finish off the Varghest in its death throes. He was fast, easily ducking the webs of spells and violence felling his other comrades, and then very suddenly found himself being flanked by a scraggly, pale youth in a large hat.

The man staggered, turning with his blades in his hands, still alive and trying to fight back despite the gushing wound now in his side. Soon enough there was an arrow in his brain, and he collapsed before Cole, the boy looking down on him.

Trevelyan already had another arrow clenched in his fist in case he needed to use it, but it was unnecessary. That was the last man.

“—Stay where I can see you, Cole.”

Cole’s eyes would perhaps forever remain in shadow, but the quizzical tilt of his head served the same purpose of expression. “But if you see me, then they can see me, and then I can’t bring the knives where they need to go.”

“It has a point, my dear,” Vivienne piped in, straightening out her collar. There was a splash of blood on her otherwise immaculate robes, and she sniffed at it disdainfully before continuing. “If you insist on bringing this _thing_ with us, the least we can do is properly utilize its abilities, however distasteful it might be to let it out of our sight.”

The splintering feeling in his stomach shifted to a flush of heat as he moved focus to Vivienne, knowing that she was absolutely right and only able to manage a thin-lipped, “Fine, yes,” instead of reminding her that Cole was not an “it”.

The rest of them started picking apart the caravan that the bandits had sprung from, Blackwall in particular working on setting up a temporary camp. Restless and now suddenly brooding, Trevelyan announced his intent to secure the area, stubbornly leaving even as there were protestations that someone less important could manage that.

As if he was going to get killed looking at sand.

Prowling, looking for a Gurn or something to kill to express the bubbling knot in his stomach, he didn’t realize someone was trailing behind him until he heard him whisper, “It’s just rawness.”

Trevelyan twitched at the intrusion, rather heavily, but didn’t otherwise react.

“Like having fingers numb from the cold, can’t feel, don’t care about losing them,” Cole continued on in a light murmur. He didn’t remember him walking up, thought he was still engaged in the conversation with Solas he had begun, on the stars it sounded like. “But they are warm now, and the thaw is agony. You will feel better when it’s over, I promise.”

“It’s not cold out here,” he shot back irritably, even though he knew exactly what Cole meant.

“No, but it will be at night time,” the spirit responded, tone twisting into a confused lilt. “Fires at night and water in the day, or you collapse. But too _much_ water in the day and you…still collapse. How can something you _need_ make you sick?”

It was extremely difficult to be angry at a being that saw things so differently, _understood him_ , even if they did keep poking around in his head. Trevelyan sighed, clapping a hand on his shoulder even as Cole was visibly confused by the gesture. “Welcome to the desert.”

Cole looked out on the expanse, still holding a bloody dagger in his hand. Sometimes it seemed he never put them down. “…You don’t have to worry for me. But thank you.”

 

It seemed the Inquisition crew were not the only ones who were sick and tired of the Hissing Wastes. One of the last words that the lone Venatori spellbinder minding a mostly dismantled camp was able to get out of his mouth before an arrow severed his carotid artery was “damn this blasted sand”.

The air had dropped to almost freezing now that the sun had gone down. It was hideous. Cole asked where the snow was the first night they spent there, before they’d gotten across the endless expanses to where the Venatori were. Everyone had gotten into a somewhat lively debate over how snow formed as Trevelyan shivered and fought the urge to spit on the ground, a rather bad habit he was picking up from time with Sera.

If he were less of a cynic he might have taken it as a sign that the Maker did exist after all when they finally got to the tomb that the Venatori in the area had been attempting to excavate.

After a little bit of discussion, Trevelyan managed to talk them into letting him go down into the spooky old ruin, Solas going down with him while the others covered the entrance. There was little sign of anyone being inside the tomb now, but as their odds tended to be, someone would come upon them while they were leaving. Better to just block off the route inside now.

The air as they walked inside was stagnant, crumbling architecture replaced with hastily made scaffolding that couldn’t have been older than a few months. The entrance led to a large area that at one time had perhaps been a descending staircase but now was merely a series of ladders. Trevelyan called down, voice echoing down the dark pit, and heard nothing in reply. It was a good sign.

Just as he was preparing to fashion a light for them with a stick, a rag, and a pair of matches, a _fwoosh_ of fire burst out behind him, and he turned to see Solas frowning in concentration next to a black brazier. The flames flared to life with intermingling greens and blues, one of the most beautiful things that he’d ever seen. He would be breathless if he hadn’t already seen it before.

Instead he said, unnecessarily, “Oh, good.”

He slid down the ladder, feeling the wood scratch through his gloves. Solas followed him down more carefully, veil fire torch in hand. The green light flickered over them both, casting their eerie shadows in long, distorted silhouettes upon the wall.

Trevelyan had been alone with Solas enough times at this point that he didn’t feel the uncomfortable pressure to speak, able to focus on their surroundings and navigating in the dark. It was calm, feeling far removed from the _sand_ and wind outside. Even as the air grew colder the farther down they went into what was shaping up to be another old dwarven tomb, the icy chill that had gnashed at his skin was at bay. If he was an empathetic man he would feel bad for the others waiting outside.

He wasn’t.

Still, a part of him wanted to break the silence. There was a disquieting stillness about the way the elf conducted himself, as though he was still in the Fade observing things in motion rather than actively participating. It made one curious as to his opinions, the ones that were not yet often forthcoming.

But, starting a conversation was harder than just walking into them, and he was sorely under practiced in it. It didn’t help that Solas had easily rebuffed most of his methods for getting a good read on someone.

So, Trevelyan abruptly started to panic a little and blurted out, “Earlier, with the Chanter—was that a spirit?”

Solas’ light laughter bounced around them from the hard stone walls. “Have you been wanting to ask that since we saw it?”

The scaffolding came to an end. The tomb was small in that it wasn’t a series of winding corridors and multiple rooms. Big in that the ceiling was high and that the veilfire could only vainly stretch _towards_ the closest wall instead of illuminating the corners of the big room. He prowled, looking for something to occupy himself.

Being laughed at like that always had the odd effect of making him feel horribly indignant and yet also cared for. Like a child. How galling. He spoke hastily, working on unlocking a chest to cool the pressure of maintaining eye contact and scraping his picks against the keyhole. “—I’m just making conversation.”

“Curiosity is not a thing to be ashamed of, Inquisitor.”

The chest popped open with a satisfying click, the joy of having successfully completed the action eclipsing the cracked shield and rusty sword he found within. Who would put such things under lock and key? “I was taught that you reveal your ignorance when you ask silly questions.”

They weren’t his words, and when he spoke them aloud he could almost hear his eldest brother’s weaselly intonation behind them. He turned to see Solas passing the veil fire torch over the wall curiously, strange words in a language he couldn’t read almost seeming to pop out of the stone in its light. “The only people who don’t ask questions are those who wish to appear knowledgeable without actually being so. Keep an open mind.”

“I do have an open mind. Too open a mind, as my mother would say.” He turned over to look, but of course the veilfire had until this point only seemed to reveal letters entirely unfamiliar to him. Solas, evidently, understood them just fine. “What is it?”

“Someone was down here quite a while back, and used this spot as a sort of…drawing board, essentially. I’m seeing instructions for runes. Some notes on their progress in something else. –I think something to aid in communication with spirits. What an odd thing to have in a dwarven tomb.”

“Really?” Trevelyan leaned on the wall, frowning though that did nothing to help his comprehension. “I can’t read any of it.”

“Well, it’s in Elven.” Solas replied easily, leaning in and holding the torch closer. A long shadow stretched from his feet now. “I should make notes, I think. Perhaps it will be useful for when your “arcanist” arrives, yes? No one does studies on this sort of thing like they used to.”

That made him laugh. “You say that like you’ve seen such studies in your lifetime.”

Solas paused, at that. Perhaps more focused on reading than banter—Trevelyan would have examined the little tugging micro expressions on his face in more depth but he felt something scuttle quickly over his fingers, heavy enough to be felt through leather.

Spider.

The conversation was interrupted by a _thud_ and a very quiet _crunch_ as he swung his fist around without thinking to squash the little thing. It was, of course, perched on a great stone wall, so after he had successfully neutralized the creature he then had to shake his hand and hiss in pain. “—Dammit, dammit, _dammit_ …”

Solas had the decency not to comment while he carried on, for which he was eternally grateful. Though when he was finished he heard next to him a dry, “Not fond of Dwarven architecture, Inquisitor?”

There were bits of squashed spider on his glove now. He wiped them off on a bare patch of stone. “…I never claimed to be partial to it.”

That earned him a small chuckle, which finally brought a flush of embarrassment to his cheeks. He turned, prepared to defend himself against this slight, but there was no malice in Solas’ expression. Granted, there usually wasn’t much of anything there. “Perhaps next time you will not be so quick to destroy what is harmless to you?”

His insides chafed at the admonishment. He bit down on his tongue, and then after that said, “ _Some_ of them are poisonous.”

Then Solas laughed again, patting him on the shoulder. Trevelyan made no outward motion but something in him flinched at the contact. “Relax, Inquisitor. I am only joking. I bear no great love for spiders.”

“Right. Of course.” And then, “Neither do I.”

“Yes, I can see.”

“—I’m sorry.” And he really was. “I cut off our talk. You were going to say something.”

Solas let out a breath and glanced around, swinging the torch so that the letters on the wall vanished completely, and instead the green illuminated more of the open room. “That is quite alright. It is…something for another time, I think. It is not as though we are here on an academic expedition, as enlightening as that would be. Let us remain focused on the task at hand.”

A slight frown tugged at Trevelyan’s brow, though he swallowed down his objections. It always felt that way with him. Just as they were getting somewhere interesting he would clam up or change the subject. It was hard to navigate in a way that would keep him talking. It didn’t seem fair, to have such a large book that only let you read a page at a time.

Though. He did have a point. They weren’t here to chat.

There wasn’t too much to examine, though that didn’t mean that whoever was here last had cleaned up the space before they left. There was a rock hastily leveled into a table strewn with notes and books, the almost liquid rivulets of stone along its surface hinting at the magic that had been used to shape it. In the center of the “room” was a fire that was long-since cold full of half-charred wood. Dismally hidden in the shadows was a knocked over chest, the lid stuck with the warping of bent metal.

Whoever had been camping here had left in a hurry. And long ago, at that. Perhaps they’d been under attack, or maybe just seized by impatience in the gloom of a tomb.

Most of the papers were useless. Plans, sketches, translation notes—things that he folded up to use later but nothing that told him what the Venatori were actually trying to achieve here. Under the loose sheets of writing, however, he did find an envelope stuffed thick with correspondences. And that proved itself to be an interesting read.

The first letter said:

           

_Overseer Jullex,_

_I don’t care if you and yours think this is a waste of time. Serving the Elder One, despite what you seem to think, is not all bleeding out slaves and demon summoning rituals. We are trying to rebuild what we have lost to history, a history that our master is intimately familiar with, mind you. If He tells us that the dwarven relics are of import, then you FETCH THEM. I don’t care what you tell your lackeys to get them to behave, maybe point out that Lady Calpernia and I are the mouthpieces of your new god and they should do as they’re told._

_The Red Templars are eager to make up for their failure—see that they don’t outstrip us in providing useful assets to our cause simply because you’re too dull to enjoy a good history lesson._

_With all respect due you,_

_Dorian_

The second letter contained:

_Magister Urathus,_

_You cannot imagine my disappointment when I received reports that against my explicit instructions the mages under your command have been bleeding scouting parties to practice summoning spirits and demons instead of focusing on excavating the tombs of Paragon Fairel._

_The peculiarities of the bindings for the tombs’ security measures is relevant to that end, I grant you, but there are less dangerous methods than running needlessly wasteful experiments that endanger even those in our own number._

_What’s more, you are drawing notice to our activities in the Wastes. This location was ideal specifically because the thinness of the Veil kept the superstitious and easily cowed Southerners from proper investigation, allowing us great leeway for our operations. But if people keep going missing then they are going to have more reason than curiosity to go after you._

_I will NOT have us incurring the wrath of the Inquisition on our less ostentatious projects simply because you idiots can’t use **self-control**. Right now they are scattered and confused, seeking a target to enact retribution on. Let’s not give them one._

_Delightful as always,_

_Dorian_

 

The third read only:

 

_Magister Gallus_

_Congratulations; you have officially attracted unwanted attention._

_You are to recall your scant forces immediately lest you all be slaughtered like the brain-addled nugs you are._

_Best regards,_

_Dorian_

 

And that was as far as he got before resolving to pour over the contents later. Many of them were in code, anyway.

“He has an odd attitude in these.” Exasperated—not just with their lack of progress but their methods for doing so. It was puzzling. Run an organization of Tevinter supremacists and it seemed only natural to turn to sacrifices. It was only a tool, after all. “He sounds annoyed that they’re provoking us.”

Gone was the cheerful academic beside him. Instead, Solas was grim, taking the notes to read for himself. “It seems likely that despite his participation something like the assault on Haven is not his style. Perhaps your spymaster has been focusing too much of her investigations on Calpernia.”

Trevelyan glanced once more at the scrawled words on the page, trying to remind himself of his frustrations at Haven, at nearly being murdered, but curiosity was starting to slowly eat the malice in his thoughts.

He folded up the letter and slipped it into his satchel with everything else.

“Perhaps.”


	5. Touring Skyhold

They went around in circles, he and the Herald. Telling him only things that were obvious, little tidbits that filled up the time slot he’d clearly set aside for their interviews instead of the concrete battle plans and resource pipelines he’d clearly held Dorian aside for. Several times he was positive that his spymaster was giving him that _look,_ the one that said, “ _I_ could make him talk if you just stopped playing nice”.

That hard, icy glint in her eye when she looked at him—Dorian was almost sure she _could_ , too. After that first night he’d been sure she’d get her go-ahead, but the next time he was brought out of his cell it seemed his arrogance and spite had just melted right off Trevelyan’s shoulders, leaving a man chipperly biding his time for…something.

“I don’t know why you insist on all this fuss. Surely you have underlings who are more skilled at interrogation,” he said one day about two weeks in, giving a pointed look to the hooded woman as she stood in the corner. Not that he was exactly _eager_ to be tortured, but the anticipation was agony.

The Inquisitor seemed to consider the words for a moment, half glancing over his shoulder as well. “I want to understand you,” he finally replied, eyes bright. And then, as though seeming to realize some error, amended, “I want to understand most people. But, right now, you in particular.”

There was something earnest in his voice when he said it, the forward slouch of his posture as though hanging on every word. It gave Dorian pause. “Understand me.”

“You’re a very interesting man. Not a fanatic, not a power-hungry idiot, not some con man looking to score…I’ve been very intrigued as to how someone of your talents and intellect wound up in an organization like the Venatori.”

Dorian looked at him through his lashes, rolling his shoulders. “Still trying the flattery, are you?”

“The word ‘flattery’ implies that I’m speaking lies.”

“Oh no, just that you think buttering me up will make me talk. Obviously, every word of praise out of your mouth is one hundred percent accurate.”

Despite his earlier coldness, it seemed that his interrogator had easily returned to an almost puppy-dog eagerness in their meetings. It didn’t seem particularly out of character for what he’d seen of him this far, and yet Dorian couldn’t help but be wary. There had to be some other end-goal behind it. Despite his ability to be endlessly entertaining, he couldn’t keep them on idle chat forever. Frankly, he was surprised that Trevelyan was as eager as he had been.

Maybe this was his idea of dating.

Dorian held back a chuckle at the thought.

He cleared his throat, rolling his shoulders again, and said, "Did you know that we're related, Inquisitor?"

Trevelyan’s brows lifted, clearly not the change of topic he was expecting, and though he tried to suppress it a faint twitch of the mouth betrayed his displeasure. “…Indeed?”

“Oh yes.” He leaned back as well as he was able—despite the absolute dearth of attack attempts by him they were still going to the effort of binding his hands to the table each meeting—and put on his best smirk. “Every prominent mage in Tevinter must know his lineage backwards and forwards. I had to run through the old mnemonics a bit, but there is indeed a Trevelyan in the far reaches of my family tree. Perhaps the one that moved to Ostwick and established your own family lines. Isn’t that an exciting thought?”

“Exciting.” Trevelyan’s smile was forced, but only for a moment. “That must explain why we look so similar.”

They didn’t look similar in the least. “It must. Funny, this small world we live in.”

“Funny.” What was really funny was his very obvious tactic of just repeating what he heard for the purpose of simulating agreement. Trevelyan ran his fingers through his hair, clearing his throat. “But we aren’t— _that_ closely related, right? It is distant?”

Dorian laced his fingers together, head cocking to the side. “Worried about the impropriety of those dreams you’ve been having about me?”

The way the Inquisitor froze, shoulders stiffening and face turning a very obviously crafted neutral, was positively delightful to behold. What exactly it signified was irrelevant, though a part of Dorian liked to think it was not disgust with his continued flirting, but rather embarrassment at being found out. Whatever the reason, he recovered soon enough, eyes half-lidded as he pushed himself up from the table. “Nothing worries me.”

Ha. Doubtful. “Leaving so soon?”

“Regretfully I have far more important things to do than sit around chatting with you over…minor matters. Perhaps have something more interesting for us to discuss next time and I might stick around longer.”

“A shame. I do so enjoy being grilled for information on my fellow countrymen.” The guards grabbed him roughly by the arms, hoisting him up as they unlocked his shackles from the table. He added, watching Trevelyan sweep his hand through his hair, righting his long bangs, “Oh, and I’d say we’re good to go by three Ages at least. Dream away, Inquisitor.”

They shoved the bag over his head before he could see the man’s reaction.

The walk back to the cells was becoming strangely routine, which was not something Dorian necessarily liked but it did expedite the boring walk in that direction. He knew where to avoid tripping on steps, could tell when they were moving through doorways, when he was being expected to stop and continue. In no time at all he could hear the familiar, squeaking swing of the first cell door, and then the second, and finally his eyes were uncovered and he was pushed back in his little room.

The moment he was once more alone there, Dorian returned to his work.

This charade they were playing, this farce of “mercy”, it was fun. Surprisingly enough it really was. It was so rare in the Venatori to talk to real people and not just brainless zealots. Even the ones like Calpernia who really believed and weren’t just interested in power, they came from completely different social spheres. Trevelyan, on the other hand, was a good conversationalist and an entertaining enemy.

However, the fact remained that he was an enemy nonetheless.

Maybe the Venatori would take him back. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe Corypheus would kill him for his failure, maybe Dorian would find some dark corner of the world to hide in where no one would find him again. But there was one thing he knew for certain—in Skyhold’s dungeon the only thing that awaited him was either eternal imprisonment or death.

He was far too pretty for either.

It was to the Inquisition’s downfall that the cells had gone so long without proper renovation, despite their attempts to fix the holes in the floor. They must have thought it more secure—who would risk jumping out into the abyss? Assume that the prisoner will remain cowering in their cell, complacent in the knowledge that they haven’t been killed yet.

As far as he knew, he was the only one who had ever stayed there significantly long-term, so the stability of the prison had never been properly tested. And Dorian was an eager student of the sciences.

The cell door was warped slightly with age; not the steel itself but its connection to the brick. Some of the cells across from him were crumbled completely from structural collapse. This one was chipped in several particular places.

They hadn’t given him much. A notebook, quill, and ink to help assuage his boredom was among some of the few effects he was allowed to keep. Currently, the notebook was mostly empty. It was hard to write with a quill that had was bent completely out of shape from using it as a crude chisel, after all.

What had started as an almost idle task had as of the last few days become possessed by an almost desperate fervor. Not out of any fear. Just because he could tell his grueling work was nearing completion.

Today was the day. The old stone cracked, and the door fell.

The air was cold. There was a guard usually stationed outside the cells, but shift rotations had to be happening shortly.  Suffice it to say, he was too clever to have gone to all that work only to be caught on the way out. There wasn’t a lot of room for maneuvering but with a couple pins he’d managed to secure over the past week and some careful timing he was clear. And then, for the first time in two weeks, he was outside of the dungeon unchaperoned.

Free. Or something close to it.

Anxious alertness coursed through him.

The courtyard was quiet at night. Not that he knew much of how it was during the day—the time he’d been carted into Skyhold had been just as the sun was sinking under the horizon, so while it wasn’t like now, with only the wind to break the dead silence, it wasn’t as bustling as one would expect of a place as full of refugees and volunteers as the Inquisition was purported to be. And any time he was brought from the cells, it was always with a bag over his head. The chatting tended to stop whenever they brought him through.

He stuck to shadows, grateful at least that his black robes blended in somewhat with the growing darkness of the night, though also cursing himself for his shiny buckles. Dorian’s one saving grace was that this was a fortress, not a prison. The guards patrolling the battlements were focused more on threats coming from outside their sturdy walls, and those keeping watch inside were more interested in idle chatter with each other than looking eagerly for escaped prisoners.

First, he needed blueprints of Skyhold. The Inquisition might not have built the entire structure, but surely they had a map of the damned thing. Especially with the extensive renovation work that he could recognize even in the dark—there must be hidden passages somewhere, escape routes or at least something that could be used as such. How would they expect to retreat if Corypheus staged an attack on them? They couldn’t pull an escape route out of their ass like before.

The day that he’d received his judgment, they had taken Dorian to the main hall. He slipped in a side door rather than climb up the very prominent and visible stairs that led directly to it, making his way through the servant passages instead. He fought to recall the layout through his memory, trying to get his tired mind working properly. Plans for Skyhold would not be out and available for the public. Only those who actually did the work would need to see it.

Several doors had laid along either side of that great hall, and when he’d been judged there had been a great crowd eager to see his blood run. As the guards dragged him away, they had filed out through the various doors there in addition to the main entrance. The unimportant had easy access to…to…

Three. All but three doors were used as exits that day. Two on the left, one on the right. Those would be his best bet.

Assuming, of course, that they didn’t have major planning areas in, say, the bar off in the corner of the fortress courtyard.

Wrapped up in his thoughts Dorian just barely avoided walking right into the path of their one-eyed Qunari mercenary as he finally made it into the great hall.

Stifling a cry of panic, he moved back behind the safety of the door, open just a crack so he could hear the lumbering, horned giant as he made his way along, a sleepy shuffle to his gait. He was heading in the direction that Dorian needed to go, and when he was far enough away Dorian slipped behind him.

There were statues—of Marcher make, it looked like—and tables to hide around and under, and so that at least granted him some peace of mind when it came to the scant few night-owl nobles that comprised of the only other company there.

The mercenary stopped near the middle door on the left, and Dorian swallowed because that was one of his options. Before long, a young man garbed in nearly full armor exited, elbows clinking awkwardly as he tried to balance rolls of some sort of fabric in his arms.

“Inquisitor gave us the go ahead, Chief,” he said, stopping before the Qunari. From that at least he could tell he must have been one of the Chargers, though which one was beyond him.

The Qunari laughed, voice much smoother than he had any right for it to be, “Nice work, Krem. Knew you’d be able to work your charm in there.”

Ah, that one. Krem. The second. The soporati.

Krem shook his head, laughing a little. “I think he’d have been happy to take this one even coming from Grim Chief. He _really_ wants that place torn down.”

“You think he’s got a moment to talk with me about something?”

“I’d try in the morning.” Krem jabbed a thumb in the direction of the door he had just come from before moving to go. “They’re still going at it in there. Some business that couldn’t wait. –Speaking of which, I’ve gotta get going too.”

“Alright, alright. Better rest up for when you and the rest of the guys ship out tomorrow.”

The two parted ways, the “chief” kept moving, and Dorian found himself grateful that that door, at least, was no longer a mystery to him. The war room. It had to be. Or something similar. At the very least, it was occupied.

The door to the far left at the end of the hall led to a set of crumbled stone steps that were, similarly, filled with scaffolding and signs of half-finished construction. His odds for this one didn’t seem to be particularly high. True to form, at the top of this particular set was someone’s living quarters.

Three guesses as to whose—though it was currently empty.

Curious as he was to rifle through, there simply wasn’t time. He made his way back down the steps, mentally crossing this door off as well.

As he walked, he heard voices, coming from somewhere beyond the stairwell. Curious, he listened—it seemed he was acoustically well-positioned to hear the war room.

Well. This could be interesting.

“…very underhanded, that’s all I’m saying,” a male voice--the ex-templar— _Cullen_ —was arguing. “Trading one man’s life for another.”

“You would rather we instead slaughtered innocent guardsmen whose only crime is capturing the wrong murderer?” This one he recognized—the spymaster who accompanied his interrogations.

“I didn’t say _that,_ Leliana. I only—”

“Then it’s settled,” Trevelyan interrupted. His voice varied between being close and far away, accompanied by the sound of his footfalls. Pacing, then. “We trade in someone unreliable for someone who _at the very least_ won’t betray our cause. I see no problem in that.”

Suitably overridden, Cullen sighed. “He won’t be pleased.”

“I don’t give a fuck what _he_ thinks,” Trevelyan said, so much venom behind the words that it actually made Dorian flinch. It astounded him to think back on, but was a tone he had yet to hear directed at himself.

Their debate was interrupted by a door slam and more harried footfalls. “Sorry—I’m so sorry I’m late.” The voice was warbling, unsteady. He recognized her accent from the trial. Josephine. “I was—I was trying to get some rest after that discussion with Lady Aguillon and overslept. I know, I know, you wanted me here to discuss the matter with—”

“You look lovely, Josephine.”

The hateful tone from before was gone. Now Trevelyan’s voice was calm, almost lilting.

The flirtation seemed to have no effect on her, though perhaps because she didn’t recognize it as such. “You are joking—my hair is a mess, I’ve barely had time to adjust my makeup, my dress is askew at the hem…”

“Yes, that’s why you look lovely.” The grin was clear just by the way he spoke. “If you went out there and talked to our visitors looking like that, the whole ‘just got out of bed’ look would be all the rage in one week.”

“You are just being kind.”

“I am not kind,” he insisted, though there was a joking quality to it too. “Alright, fine. You’re here now, let’s wrap this up so I can get some sleep.”

“Yes, yes. I have the papers here.” There was a soft _clack_ —the sound of her omnipresent clipboard. Her voice grew tight. Irritated. “We have our answer on the situation with Kirkwall. Prince Sebastian’s forces have withdrawn, and he has broken all promise of an alliance.”

Cullen interjected. “Guard Captain Aveline’s resistance was successful, thanks to our force’s support.”

Trevelyan’s voice was soft. Almost hard to hear. “Excellent. I’m glad.”

“I’m glad out of all my suggestions you ignore, you go along with this one.” Cullen added, strengthening his volume. Likely directed at Josephine. “I’m certain Sebastian will calm down eventually, and then we can renew ally negotiations.”

“I wonder, if all my siblings died in some terrible event, if I would be able to just wage war on whatever states I pleased with Ostwick’s forces,” Trevelyan mused to himself, still sounding distant. Dorian frowned, unable to stop listening. “What would it be like to have that kind of power?”

“You already head the Inquisition, your Lordship,” Leliana said placidly.

“Oh. Yes. That’s right. That’s better than Ostwick. Shall I go about annexing people, then?”

“Speaking of which,” she continued, clearly ignoring him. “Your relatives have come back into our concerns.”

“ _Again_?” All idle amusement fled from Trevelyan’s voice, along with a soft growl. “I thought we took care of them already. How many assassination rumors do we need to plant?”

"I’m afraid threats of force aren’t going to be enough this time.” Josephine sniffed. “Swiftly put, Bann Dorner has been carefully spreading rumors of the Inquisition as usurpers and thieves. For now this talk is limited to the backroom gossip of Starkhaven, but if left unchecked could severely damage our reputation in that area. Particularly given our recent rejection of Prince Sebastian’s moral crusading.” He couldn’t see anything, but Dorian couldn’t help smirking at the thought that Josephine was taking advantage of the pause to glare at Cullen.

“Bann Dorner?” He didn’t know what particular relation the Inquisitor had with the man—albeit not as wide and varied as the Pentaghasts, the Trevelyans were still a very old and large family—but he sounded, for a moment, genuinely hurt. Then just vicious. “Can we have him killed?”

The reply was a suitably offended, “No!”

The board that Dorian was leaning on stared to creak, and he snapped to himself, pulling back. He’d allowed himself to be distracted for too long—he needed some means of escape before his absence was discovered.

Once he’d climbed back down to the main hall, there was really only one option left to him, and it was a straight shot across the hall. All it took was a small pause to make sure it was empty, and then he slipped inside.

Success.

The Undercroft was chilled and dark, all lights extinguished save for the faint, dim warmth of cooling forge embers. The far balcony looked out to a foggy abyss, moonlight flickering off of the ice stalactites that ringed the large, open window. It was beautiful, in its own crude way. The walls were not the well-shaped stone of the battlements, but they still showed signs of being carved. By human hand? Elven? There were no clear reports on who had first founded Skyhold. Perhaps if he had time—

Even now, his curiosity was holding him back.

Unfortunately, the product of their labors was already gone. No weapons that he could take. Not that a staff would be much use to him if he couldn’t even summon a spark. Dorian quickly found a desk near the edge full of blueprints and papers, freezing and squinting in the dark as he rifled through them.

One thing caught his eye. At first he thought it might be the escape route he was looking for, but no. Just plans for a memorial for those lost at Haven, the ones the Inquisitor hadn’t been able to save. Long completed ones, by the look of them and their position on the stack. He swallowed. Volunteers. Refugees. “Just numbers,” he said to himself quietly. And then, of course, as he was getting down the list the name _Felix Alexius_ jumped out at him.

Dorian sighed, bracing his hands on the table and letting his head droop a little as he did.

Felix was not supposed to have been there. Felix was not supposed to have known anything at all about the Venatori or their plans. His father had been very clear on that—nothing that would get him overly worked up, or put him in danger. As far as he would know, Dorian had simply stayed to help with his studies and to have a place to remain hidden from house Pavus after-- _after_. And despite their growing differences of opinion near the end, that was something Dorian had fully agreed with.

And yet, Felix had better ears than either of them had given him credit for.

He’d pulled Dorian aside one evening and told him that he’d heard the song of the Blight around his father. That he was worried he was mixed up in something he shouldn’t have been. How dearly Dorian wished he’d been a better liar in the face of such a sudden confrontation. Instead of putting Felix’s fears at ease he just made him suspicious of them both.

Now he was dead. An unceremonious cutting down on the Inquisition’s doorstep, utterly unbefitting such a noble young man, such a keen mind. What had they done to him? Did they try to make him comfortable in his last moments? Did they treat him like a spy? He would never know.

But, a fugitive in enemy territory didn’t have the luxury of stopping to grieve. He took the list of names and shoved it into his pocket, continuing to rifle through the pile until he found a set of plans for Skyhold. Rambling plans, marked with additions or improvements in fresh ink and other parts faded and yellow, as though they’d been sitting down there for longer than the Inquisition had been occupying the fortress.

He didn’t have the light nor time to read all of them here. He quickly scanned the parchment pages for a good hiding place and then rolled them up to carry with him. Silently, he slipped through the work station, making his way out the door to exit the hall for good.

And came face to face with Trevelyan.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment with their noses almost touching, physically closer than they’d been since the Winter Palace. Dorian waited for Trevelyan to lash out, to stab him or some other instinct-based action, but all he did was look as surprised and shocked as Dorian felt.

Then, chillingly, he smiled.

Then, Dorian was suddenly being pinned to the ground, his arms twisted behind his back and the stink of sweaty Qunari assaulting his nostrils. He cried out, more in anger and frustration than pain, though that didn’t mean he wasn’t suffering from the sudden and intense weight and force on his limbs.

“I think that’s good enough. Rather not follow you all the damn night.” the Qunari said, his voice like wet gravel. “Man, I was starting to think you’d never make your move.”

“What? What are you _talking_ about?” Dorian spluttered, his head having already accepted defeat but his body not getting the message and continuing to struggle.

He had to crane his neck a little to see, but Trevelyan was looking down at him, still grinning now. “He’s talking about your ‘escape’, Dorian. The one we planned.”

“You _planned?”_

“Did you think we just weren’t paying attention to you? To the state of your cell? You must have a very poor opinion of my organization.”

It wasn’t worth arguing that he did, in fact, have a poor view of the organization. It was clearly wrong.

“We wanted to see what you’d do. Think of it like a safety drill.” Trevelyan turned his attention to the Qunari, lifting a brow. “Tell me, what _did_ he do, Bull? Set the soldiers on fire? Summon a demon in my courtyard? Plant poison in my tea?”

The great giant’s laughter sent a chill down his spine. “Nah. He was trying to be all sneaky-like, keep people from noticing him. Mostly did a lot of looking around. Took a few papers from the Undercroft, though.”

“Well, Varric owes me twenty silvers.”

“You cannot _possibly_ have been following me this entire time!” Dorian protested sharply, craning his neck a little to see the heavily scarred, one-eyed beast holding him down. “How in Andraste’s name did you manage to keep me from seeing you?”

“Ben-Hassrath, ‘Vint. Though I’m usually more of a ‘hide in plain sight’ kind of guy...”

“ _Ben-Hassrath_?” Dorian’s voice pitched up in outrage, looking to Trevelyan and seeing nothing more than a mild frown on his face. Not Tal-Vashoth, as the reports had claimed—a full blown Qunari spy. “You have—you have a _Ben-Hassrath agent in your inner circle?_ ”

“ _Former_ Ben-Hassrath,” Trevelyan insisted, to which the Qunari gave a grunt.

“Are you _crazy?_ ”

“A little.” This didn’t seem to bother the Inquisitor in the slightest, readjusting his posture and expression to be cheerful once more. “How about a proper introduction? Dorian, this is Iron Bull. Iron Bull, this is Dorian."

" _The_ Iron Bull," the Qunari corrected, adjusting his stance so that Dorian, while being further crushed into the dirt, had less of a risk of his arms snapping off. "Nice to formally meet you, pretty boy."

" _Charmed_ ," Dorian returned through gritted teeth.

Rage and humiliation washed through him. He was desperate to reach for his magic, to set the entire place alight and wipe the smug grins off of both of their faces. But before he could summon so much as a spark, the strap on his arm pulsed painfully and smothered the fire. It was like having a bowl full of water and no way to drink it.

Trevelyan knelt beside him, composed. "You look quite uncomfortable there, Dorian. Perhaps you would be _more_ comfortable back in your cell."

The Bull applied just the slightest increase of pressure on his back, and for a millisecond that lasted hours it felt like his spine might snap.

Dorian bit back a string of curses, glaring as hard as it was in his power to glare before finally ceasing all resistance. "Alright, alright. Call off your _thug_."

Trevelyan nodded to the Iron Bull, and after a quick swipe through his pockets to take back the plans he stole from the Undercroft Dorian was allowed to his feet. His arms were not given back to him, however, still held bent behind him as though to continue to threaten to break them. “I hope you aren’t too upset by the deception.”

“Rather more upset about being held prisoner against my will,” he snarled, trying not to feel like a sore loser. “So, tell me. What punishments await me now that I have risen to your so carefully executed baiting tactics? Am I to be properly shackled in my cell this time?”

“Oh no. I promised Cassandra that if you tried to escape we’d kill you immediately.”

A jolt ran through Dorian as he glanced over, saw the placid expression on Trevelyan’s face. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out, not at first. Eventually he managed a sneer and a huffy, “Oh, is that so?”

"It is so.” Trevelyan put a hand on his shoulder, though immediately withdrew it when Dorian shot him a look. “—Point being, if we change up your guard rotation or living arrangements now it’ll be obvious you’ve done something, and then for appearance’s sake I will have to chop your head off.”

He returned a stare of utter disbelief, stopping briefly before the Iron Bull nudged him forward again. “So your intention instead is to do absolutely nothing? Just—pretend like this never happened?”

“Well. You only escaped because we were deliberately lowering our security standards, Dorian.” His tone was patient and quiet, “Would you _prefer_ to be shackled in your cell, over having more consistently present guards and a sturdier door?”

There was no need to reply, so Dorian did not.

As they made their way back inside the dungeon, this time one of the inner cells, Trevelyan said, a slight string of nervousness entering his tone, “So, do you—do you like Skyhold? What you’ve seen of it?”

Baffled, for a moment he considered saying something spiteful as he walked back into his cage, but after a moment simply decided on, “It could use some polish. And it’s a bit too austere. But, it’s not intolerable. I rather like it, actually.”

“You do?”

“Oh yes. Particularly your bedchambers.”

Trevelyan practically fled before he could see his reaction, but he could hear the Iron Bull laughing the whole way as he made his retreat.

So at least he had that to make up for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter required so much revision over the course of writing it. At conception it was really great but the logistics of what I wanted to do with it bogged me down so much I’m glad to be over it. I also maaaay have butchered the architecture of Skyhold in the process, but then I don't really view the environment in the game as strictly canon, as it is very lacking in quarters outside of the Inquisitor's...


	6. Stalking and Crushing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have the next few chapters decently finished, actually! It's uh, more the stuff near the end that's still in pieces, but I've got time to get there.

Damn it all, Emprise du Lion was cold.

Trevelyan was not a complete stranger to the sensation—Ostwick wasn’t exactly known for being anything other than damp and chilly save for two months out of the year. Sometimes the wind even worked itself up enough to approach the kind of cutting force that would blow through the mountains and icicles festooning this place. But it wasn’t that comforting seep-into-your-bones cold. It was—as Varric had put it—“slap you in the face with a wet blanket and turn your ass blue” cold.

His armor was well insulated, but not _that_ well insulated. The only real source of heat to be found was the whispering radiation of the red lyrium in Sahrnia quarry, peaking out from where it had infected the rock. And he wasn’t stupidly curious enough to touch it after the stories that Varric and Cullen had told him about Knight Commander Meredith.

Even if it was beautiful and fascinating.

No, Emprise du Lion was just bitterly cold, full of freezing wind and glittering white snow that he might have liked more before he’d been buried in it back at Haven.

And Templars. He could not forget the Templars.

The one that lay before him gave a low, pathetic gurgle before slipping away, blood staining the white snow a red as bright as the lyrium. It was lovely, but he couldn’t stay, and slipped back into the quarry before his break in cover was noticed.

Eventually their patrols were going to notice the bodies, but until then he would continue whittling them down as much as he could. He was alone, uncomfortably so, the others in his traveling party elsewhere in the sprawling quarry. The split up hadn’t been a deliberate plan so much as an unfortunate necessity after he’d been climbing on some less-than-stable rock, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t spin it to a useful purpose. They had two primary objectives here: clear out the Red Templar leadership that was using the location to sustain their red lyrium supply, and deprive them of the captured innocents they were using as fertilizer to grow the stuff. After falling almost literally head-first into their pseudo-headquarters, Trevelyan had volunteered to take care of the former problem.

Saving people tended to be tiresome, anyway. He didn’t know what to do with their gratitude, how to properly respond. Had to keep himself from flinching when some of them tried to kiss his hands and feet so as to avoid the image of himself as implacable. It was refreshing to have the chance to be stealthy, for a change. He could hide _himself_ easily enough, but not the party that was always clomping along after him.

The only real problem with that was worrying that they were off getting killed somewhere and he could do nothing about it, but those periodic thoughts could be submersed again with only a little trouble.

He saw another patrol passing by as he made his way up the scaffolding—two just idling through to make sure no one was coming in this choke point, one a warrior and the other an archer like himself. Trevelyan allowed himself a wolfish grin before following them.

This was fun. This area had been so frustrating, before. Sahrnia itself was a dismal eyesore, and the people in it were lackluster and quiet from starvation and bitter winter. The landscape outside of it wasn’t much better, festering with demons and pity cases. He still remembered the letter that a dying woman had asked him to deliver, a hateful lie that was somehow supposed to be more comforting than the truth. He had spoken gently, promised to do as she asked, and then ripped it to shreds with his teeth the moment he was alone. And then had to spend a few minutes picking pieces of paper out of his mouth.

The two templars idled at a fork, a path through the cavern that led to a dead end. Trevelyan took a coin from his pack and tossed it, the piece of silver making a little clinking sound as it hit stone.

The sole high point in this miserable place had been the diary entries he’d found, an interplay between some unnamed cat and mouse. It wasn’t saying much, though. The tracker’s sheer arrogance and lack of respect for the sport came through quite clearly in his writings, which had made it hard to completely enjoy it. The woman he’d been following—the clear winner to root for--had been cleverer than the tracker had given credit for, and the journals stopped. She didn’t seem to take as much pride in cataloguing her exploits, either. Trevelyan found himself disappointed on multiple levels.

Now he was here, vibrant and free, doing what he did best.

Stalker.

The word had a pleasant sensation on his tongue. It was nice to be living the life of a hunter, instead of getting a cheap, vicarious thrill reading the diary of someone stupid enough to hunt someone who knew him and got killed by his own prey.

The Templar wearing no armor, only heavy Chantry robes, slipped out of sight of the other to investigate the noise. Trevelyan dropped down behind him, and quick as a blink sliced the side of his neck, holding him by the throat as he collapsed to keep him from letting out a thud when his body fell against the floor.

If one of these amateurs ever managed to turn tables on him, he’d die of embarrassment first.

The Templars here seemed anxious about something other than the singing in their heads, which was impressive. They spoke to each other in hushed tones, some half-jogging through and some fidgety at their posts. Experience and a quarrelsome, knobby knee-ed elf had taught him that whenever small people were in a state, that meant a big person was angry somewhere.

The operation of the Red Templars was strange to Trevelyan, because at times like this they did feel almost like people. He had found notes, diary entries indicating doubt among some of the rank and file that still remained in the Red Templar forces, some regret at what they’d become. But it clashed with the oblivious evil of what they were doing, using people to grow lyrium and slaughtering innocents. It almost angered him, really—how dare they have a conscience, and _not use it_?

Being a Templar was one of the paths that his parents had tried to pick out for him. A promise to the Chantry. A promise to _this_. Blind obedience even in the face of having shards of rock in your eye. So, human or not, doubting or not, really he just wanted to burn it all down. Dance on the ashes and then send some to his mother back home. Anything else, any suggestion of redemption or good men and women lost to a bad cause, it really just confused the issue into a knot in his stomach.

Even the Templars he’d recruited would never have their order back. He’d crushed them into the Inquisition’s ranks. It had felt great.

It was as he’d chosen to follow a trio of the more heavily armored kind, puzzling out how to isolate each of them, that he heard talking. The caverns in which he’d found himself had led out into a large, open pit, thankfully full of more scaffolding. It was buffeted by wind and carved out by mining, leaving less lyrium inside than elsewhere.

Herein fussed the “Big People”, concepts that didn’t particularly concern Trevelyan overly much, except that he recognized one of them from a sketch that had accompanied Leliana’s reports. Greasy black hair swept back, a sallow complexion, and peculiar, red lyrium infused armor.

This, as Trevelyan was to understand, was Samson.

He was rifling through a collection of papers in his hand, grumbling irritably as he searched. Given the option of letting him go to focus on the others or leaving the easier targets behind to observe him, Trevelyan covertly pursued.

When he was close enough to make out what he was saying, Samson had reached another intersecting cavern. Someone was waiting for him, just out of sight of his vantage point. He heard, “…and I wouldn’t have to be here dealing with the whims of a brat magister.”

He heard a sharp exhale of breath, like an irritated sigh, and then a slightly familiar voice uttering, “Now hold on--let's get this clear _once_ , alright? I am not a magister. I know you Southerners use magister as shorthand for 'evil mage from Tevinter', but that's wrong. I may be the latter, but I'm not the former."

It was different, hearing him in speaking tones instead of shouting taunts and orders across a battlefield amidst a growing storm. But he knew who that was. Even before readjusting his position to let the man come into view, he could imagine the custom Venatori robes flapping in stormy wind, sticking out against an expanse of white and hiding the blood dripping from his chest in their darkness. Unlike Haven, there was another layer under them, now—something to better combat the chill, Trevelyan expected. Dorian just didn’t seem the outdoorsy type.

How Corypheus had managed to make an alliance work between extremist Templars and Mages was a mystery—even the normal ones at Skyhold would duke it out every once in a while, and they had a _worthwhile_ cause at their backs. Samson barely stopped to acknowledge him, and Dorian was forced to jog to catch up. Trevelyan found himself in a much trickier position, unable to move quickly lest he make too much noise, and so almost lost them. It took a bit of shortcut maneuvering through a connecting tunnel to meet them again, and it was there that he finally got a good look at Dorian Pavus.

He hadn’t seen him very clearly at Haven. Enough to recognize that this was the same man who now stood so tantalizingly close that if he hadn’t been concerned for his cover he could have reached out and sliced his throat.

Not enough to fully appreciate until this moment how utterly gorgeous he was.

His dark skin was smooth and flawless, save for a small beauty mark just under the curve of his right eye that set off the height of his cheekbones. His dark hair was perfectly styled, curled lightly at the bangs as they fell over his forehead, wet from snow, occult symbols shaved into the closely cut sides. His nose was strong, nostrils flaring a little in his anger, a curling mustache sitting just above his upper lip. When he spoke, chided, snarled, he revealed shining white teeth, perfectly straight and untouched by blows to the face or jaw-clenched grinding. His every movement was both graceful and radiated attitude, from a dismissive flick of his wrist to the prim arch of his brow.

A hollow thrum of _want_ pulled in Trevelyan’s chest.

He knew it was shallow, knew from experience just how skin-deep beauty could be, but he still found himself falling over his feet for lithe women with smooth skin and well-sculpted men with clever eyes. Vanity was discouraged in Ostwick; the ones who would deign to waste their time playing around with him rebuffed his attempts at getting a portrait or even a _sketch_ that he could hold on to when they inevitably left him for better prospects, something to drink in their features and admire even as he was bitterly sulking alone. And _Dorian_ \--

Oh, Dorian had a face that begged to be carved into marble.

What an utter waste.

The Anchor tingled warm inside his hand, drawing back his focus. They were leaving him behind, and he struggled to continue eavesdropping.

“—and I don’t have endless men and women to spare on your pet projects. If you want to infect yourselves _fine_ , but don’t drag all of _my_ people into this.”

"Don’t have the stomach for war, mage?” Samson’s eyes were bloodshot and dull as he spoke, the venom there but no actual fire behind it. Maybe he was once a man who didn’t have the stomach for war, himself. He certainly looked that way—perhaps one day far in his past he’d been handsome, or at least clean looking, but now it was almost like his features were melting off his face. “Sometimes people get sacrificed. I don’t see you lot making any advances on our enemies while you chase around in ruins and old temples. The least you could do is pull your weight here.”

"Excuse me?" Trevelyan could almost swear that Dorian's finely groomed mustache curled with the indignant spike of his voice. The mage stepped towards Samson, jabbing at him with his index finger and just falling short of actually touching his red lyrium infested armor. "It was _your_ men who failed at Therinfal, remember?

“Yes, and I seem to recall the Master handing the Inquisition to you mages on a silver platter and you absolutely failing to do anything with it.”

The bitter chill sunk into his bones again, and he remembered being buried in an avalanche. He remembered having to climb through flaming roofs, kick doors down, scoop up burning bodies that didn’t know they were dead yet. It was Dorian and Calpernia who had led the charge, but Trevelyan decided then that he just didn’t like Samson.

Samson, who was not beautiful, not even in a rugged kind of way like maybe Blackwall.

Dorian clearly didn’t either. “We succeeded at Haven! We destroyed their base of operations! Who could have foreseen the ‘Herald’ surviving a bloody avalanche?!”

Samson’s face twisted into an ugly sneer. “Maybe the Maker plucked him from the mountain Himself.”

“Now you’re being childish.” Dorian rubbed his temples, closing his eyes and taking a breath. “After this next shipment, the deliveries are stopping. I need my people at optimum concentration, and they can’t do that when they’re complaining of hearing _songs in their heads_. It’s giving me a headache just standing next to you _._ ”

It sounded like there was going to be some actual shouting, judging by the way Samson began his sentence with a, “Listen to me you spoiled—“, but Trevelyan didn’t hear the rest. They had passed through a narrower passageway, and two Templars stood flanking the only way through, no room for staying out of sight.

Little flutters of panic shot through him. No, he couldn’t lose them now. Trevelyan doubled back, looking for alternate routes through this maze of a quarry, passing up several perfectly good targets without even thinking about it.

A flash of black and yellow. The snake embroidered on Dorian’s cloak.

Now surrounded by a few more grunts, some Templar and some Venatori, he was talking with a Templar other than Samson, this one in full armor but recognizable because of his build. Trevelyan and his accompaniment had come across him recently in the Emerald Graves, and only avoided a full battle by getting interrupted by a giant that had been in the area.

“… **got strict orders** …” said Carroll. His voice didn’t sound like it was deep naturally, but crackled and broken as it echoed through his helmet, like grinding stone. He was appalling up close.

“Now see here—” Dorian moved as though to take a step towards him, attempt intimidation, and then realized partway through such a thing was impossible as he was almost exactly half the man’s height. “This is not up for negotiation. I came here as a courtesy, that’s all. I’m far too important to have to argue with a brain-dead thrall like you.”

“ **you’re important,** ” Carroll’s left arm was larger than his right, and he leaned in that direction a little. “ **and i’m the…queen of antiva…** ”

“Andraste’s ass, you southern Templars are _all the same_.”

They circled in the dense space, almost prowling around each other like rival predators.

Both of them unaware of the third predator that was eagerly watching them.

Caroll’s arteries were sadly not exposed in his armor, but Trevelyan suspected he was not impervious to crushing force.

He climbed along on the scaffolding, carefully judging the rock that was hollowed and cracked from digging and pickaxes, and then waited for them to move into position. He would do it quickly—not this drawn out affair of “half-dead” or “half-alive”, a puppet full of injuries held up by the rocks that consumed them. He would end life in one snap moment that kept all complicated feelings at bay, allowed him to only experience the joy of exercising a skill.

It hadn’t occurred to him at all that when he used his weight to make the wall crumble down on Carroll’s head, it would make him fall too.

He was nimble enough to avoid being buried in another avalanche, this being one he certainly would not survive, though any and all attempts at stealth had been ruined. He was stuck there for a moment when the dust settled, blinking and coughing and wishing that he thought ahead a little bit more than he did now.

Just out of blast range, Dorian’s eyes widened. He stared just long enough for Trevelyan to appreciate that his irises were like a ring of polished steel, or perhaps storm clouds right before they flashed lightning.

He couldn’t help a soft bloom of puppy dog adoration before his battle instincts kicked in and he dodged the sudden bolt of fire headed his way.

He twisted from his spot, throwing himself behind crumbling wood and slicing one Templar through the jugular to use as a human shield.

He loved a good dogfight.

The quarters were too close for his bow and arrow, but that was no matter. He’d been practicing with Cole. He knew where the knives needed to go, felt the spray of blood that curdled under the intense flame that followed his footsteps.

In order to keep his advantage, most dogfights were over in less than a minute.

Before this one began, there had been maybe four Templars in the room with him, two Venatori spellbinders, and Dorian. Now there was only one Templar, one Venatori that was desperately trying to choke out a healing spell, and…Dorian.

Dorian shoved the dying Venatori away with a perfectly executed disgusted snort as they clutched at his robes, and as a mercy finished the job himself with a quick slice of the blade on his staff. A man after his own heart. “Well. This I was not expecting.”

Maker, he was breathtaking.

Trevelyan knew this by the breathlessness in his own voice when he called out, “Dorian Pavus!”, all smiley and bright-eyed.

Dorian lifted a single eyebrow, straightening up. “Inquisitor Trevelyan, I presume.” The Templar remaining circled, one of the ones not as far infected and capable of at least some caution. Though the twitchy energy they radiated was as palpable as water.

Trevelyan dipped into a bow, throwing in a bit of flourish with his sweeping arms. “It occurred to me that we haven’t yet been properly introduced.”

His politeness seemed to surprise—though not impress—the Venatori mage in front of him, who cleared his throat and started scribbling in the dirt with the end of his staff. “Yes, funny thing that. When you’re busy trying to reshape the world you tend to not pay much mind to a backwater Chantry sprouting a new organization like some unsightly growth.”

“Ow. My poor pride.” He put a hand on his chest, feigning a stagger. “Well, we seem to be making a decent thorn for your side, at any rate. –What are you doing?”

Dorian didn’t even deign to look up as Trevelyan craned his neck to get a better view of the sigil he was making in the dirt. He did reply, “Preparing to kill you, of course.”

“Oh, is that all?” He didn’t recognize the circle. Not that he was particularly well versed in Tevinter magic—it was hard to get his hands on any texts from there, of course. Perhaps Solas would be a better information source; to hear him tell it, almost everything of their magic was stolen from ancient elves. “I think perhaps we can be civil for one minute while you’re doing that.”

“Says the man practically swimming in blood.” Something in him seemed to catch on that, though—Dorian stopped drawing and glanced over. His throat bobbed slightly as he swallowed. “What, exactly, is there to be civil about?”

“Common ground!” Trevelyan gestured around him, feeling his pulse quicken now that those lovely eyes were upon him again. “For example, we both apparently hate red lyrium.”

Dorian made a forced, sarcastic chuckle. “Why yes, that’s true. Sadly, little similarities like a distrust of blighted lyrium and _breathing_ don’t friends make. If you have something to say, then say it. Ordinarily I quite like banter but it is _fucking freezing_ , so if you don’t mind—”

“—You’re very attractive,” he blurted out.

Dorian blinked. “I. Yes?”

“I will make sure,” Trevelyan continued, reaching to his belt, “To not damage your face.”

The Inquisition had recently acquired an arcanist.

She was small, adorable, and devious. He was incredibly happy to have spent the resources getting little Dagna. Enchantments in particular seemed to be an area of specialization for her, meaning that even the non-mages in his group were able to utilize magical effects on their weapons and armor. Sometimes that meant cold blades, fire arrows, barrier robes…

Flash bombs that cast Mind Blast on anything they hit.

It seemed there was little Dorian could do about his weak point, sputtering and spitting once more. It was almost painful to watch this much closer, seeing the way his eyes reddened and watered as they spun from agony. Normally, the spell as he’d seen it applied by Solas on your average bandit was like a slap to the sternum, a staggering thing that existed to grant just a moment of reprieve. On Dorian it was like punching an open chest wound.

But it was a pain that he was perhaps getting better at managing, because instead of falling like he did before he kept his balance by slamming his staff into the ground, hard enough that the blade dug in and a cloud of black fog from the unfinished circle shot up in response.

He felt more than saw the spell hurtling towards him, too fast to dodge. A ripple in the air washed over Trevelyan’s skin, and for a moment he thought perhaps it had passed harmlessly by.

Then a hole tore open in the ground by his feet and a shadowy black tentacle grabbed at his wrist.

It wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been. And yet, there it was, coiling around him to hold him fast. Some kind of fade creature perhaps? He could feel it on his skin, but none of the pressure of actually being held. After several steps back, the cord of blackness followed him. It continued to wrap around, growing in size and length as though it was made of condensing, thick smoke. What exactly it was forming was a mystery to him, but—

Ah. It had a head.

It wasn’t a tentacle at all. It was a _snake._

Was it real? It reared up as though in preparation of striking him, but it had yet to do so. Trevelyan had never seen a snake so large—its coils had now moved to wrap around the entirety of his arm, mouth opening to show fangs longer than his fingers. It was a magnificent creature, a void of light yet vibrant with energy, and he looked it in the eyes as it glared him down.

Dimly he heard near him, "Well, I was going for _terrified_ , but I suppose ‘entranced’ could serve its purpose."

Another ripple of magic in the air. He just barely managed to avoid getting third degree burns all over his body, though that unfortunately left him with a charbroiled sleeve and bubbling skin on his right arm, no longer covered in snake. He howled, a constrained sound merely to vent the pain, and threw a knife from his belt.

It missed Dorian, but hit the red Templar behind him right in the eye.

“Neat party trick!” Trevelyan yelled, waving his arm frantically to put out the fire still flickering on his wrist.

“Well, you are right about that.” Dorian was gearing up for another longer spell, eyes still reddened and mustache in disarray. Even mussed up by combat, he was startlingly handsome.

… _Especially_ mussed up by combat.

Well, he couldn’t stare this time, he had to interrupt the spell before it killed him. But, from the looks of things actually stepping within its building area of effect would be…extraordinarily painful.

He pulled his bow.

Aiming for the air above Dorian, into the web of lightning that was slowly building around him, he let fly a metal arrow.

The result was instantaneous and satisfying. The metal drew the electricity to it like a beacon, like a rift sucking Fade matter inside. The spell reached completion just as the arrow passed overhead, and so all of it, all the power that was about to be directed at him, was instead shot into the arrow and then dispersed in a violent _BOOM_ against the wall. Perhaps it spoke to how positively dead Trevelyan would have been that it actually cracked through the stone, shattering bits of its interior by the sound of things.

Noise began to leak in from outside. The clash of battle, shouting voices, and detonated charges. He knew what those sounds meant.

Reinforcements. For the _Inquisition_ , this time.

Dorian ran a hand through his hair, which was sticking up wildly in a manner that made him somehow _even yet more attractive_. He laughed humorlessly, glancing back towards the source of the noise. “I suppose that’s my cue to leave. But don’t worry, I have no intention of leaving you bereft of playmates.”

Chanting in an obscure tongue, he then performed some sort of flipping maneuver with his staff that Trevelyan would doubtless be dreaming about later. The air sang, and then filled with whispers, building louder and louder until it hit a crescendo right as the end of the staff slammed into the ground. Then all the building energy seemed to puff out of the room as quickly as it had come.

The Venatori and red Templars that lay scattered and broken on the ground began to move.

Their eyes that had been empty of life filled with glowing lights, limbs operating at unnatural angles as they made their way to their feet. Or at least, in the case of some, their stumps.

His heart sank. He tried to run after Dorian and almost fell face first onto the hard ground as the Venatori whose throat he’d sliced open earlier clutched at his leg. A quick _snikt_ , blade drawing out the slightest spatters of dark blood, and he was free—albeit with a detached hand still gripping the ankle of his boot. But by then he was already gone.

Why was it that the fun ones never stuck around?

There was a low, loud rumble from the corner of the room, and Carroll slowly stood up again. His helmet had come off in the rock slide, and most of his face was missing. That didn’t stop the same eyelights from glaring at him, something full of rage and bloodlust.

There were footsteps, loud and frequent, from the shattered hallway to the left. Glinting in the pale light, Cassandra charged into the room, shield held ready and sword drawn, and her eyes widened noticeably when she saw the behemoth attempting to crush all moving targets in the room. “Maker’s _breath.”_

Trevelyan ducked as one large, red lyrium fist swing towards his head. “My thoughts exactly!”

“Andraste’s flaming tits, man,” added Varric, close on Cassandra’s heels with Bianca already ready to fire. “Are you able to have _one_ mission without hitting above your paygrade?”

“This is my paygrade!” Trevelyan protested, tripping a little as he continued to think about Dorian. _I was just fighting a really powerful mage! It’s not my fault he’s a necromancer too!_ What actually came out of his mouth was “I was just—”

Then one of the swings connected and he was knocked off his feet, stunned. The remains of Carroll’s shattered skull oozed threateningly at him.

He was fighting to regain consciousness as the undead closed around him, so he didn’t perceive very accurately what happened after that. Next thing he was fully aware of, the dead bodies that had surrounded him were dead once more, a few of them filled with arrows shot neatly through the slots in their helmets, but most of them with body parts cleaved off with precision strikes. Cassandra was pulling him to his feet, saying something along the lines of “ _That was very foolish, Inquisitor.”_

“I didn’t _plan_ to get cut off from the group,” he mumbled, rubbing his head. No bleeding. That was good. Then he wouldn’t have to kill himself to forego the red lyrium madness.

Cassandra didn’t roll her eyes exactly but she looked up as though imploring the heavens, and though the expression felt condescending she was so cute, so delightfully _Cassandra_ when she was exasperated that it had lost all power to upset him now. “You _could_ have waited for us to find a way to join up with you, so you were not dealing with so many enemies all by yourself.”

“I could have.” But then he wouldn’t have had a chance to finally, properly meet Dorian.

Headache aside, that had been very nice.

Evidently, Cassandra didn’t like his decision-making skills. “You are smirking,” she said coldly, wiping blood off of her blade with a small rag from her pocket.

“Just think you look nice today,” he said, head lolling to the side a little as he thought. This startled her.

“I…oh. Thank you.”

“All covered in blood. –Other people’s blood, I mean.”

The faint blushing schoolgirl look faded in favor of a hard, narrowed stare. “…You are making a joke at my expense.”

Varric shook his head. “Don’t try to confuse the Seeker, Inquisitor. She’s just going to huff and make more disgusted noises.”

“I am not!”

“What do you call what you’re doing right now?”

“I am not making any noises! You two are always poking fun at me for no good reason.”

"There’s _plenty_ of good reason.”

“Like what?”

“You make it really funny.”

Trevelyan still had a goofy grin stuck on his face as they strolled out of the cave to kill more Red Templars, Cassandra and Varric bickering in front of him the whole way.


	7. Reform; Restore; Repurpose

Dorian was nose-deep in a book when he heard the slam of the gaol doors opening.

His initial thought was that the Inquisitor had come to speak to him again. Trevelyan had been visiting more often as of late—he suspected at least in part to make sure there were no more escape attempts in the works, but there also seemed to be a genuine desire to learn in there, too. The times when he wasn’t flanked by his vicious little Nightingale, dragging him away to ask him about the Venatori, he would instead hang on the bars and pester him with all manner of questions about Tevinter. How the government worked, what their version of the Chant was like, what the difference between an Altus and a Laetan was (as if that wasn’t _obvious)_ —it was clear that the Soporati in the Chargers hadn’t been enough to satisfy his curiosity.

Each time he came down, Dorian would tsk and complain about all he was being expected to answer. _“What do I look like, your one stop information center for all things Tevinter?”,_ he’d say. In truth though he rather liked it, begrudgingly. To see someone with such an earnest interest in learning about his homeland, and on topics that didn’t twist his insides to think about. A rare thing in the South.

It was hard to deny the disappointment that ran through him when he saw that Trevelyan was not among the party entering the dungeon, though it was quickly overtaken by confusion when he saw who the guards were escorting in, bound in chains like a common criminal.

He scrambled to the bars and attempted to get a better look, but by then the guards were leaving and the man had been left in the cell next to his. A part of him wanted to return to his book—let the Inquisition sort out their own affairs. But in spite of everything, Dorian was a curious man. And this was a curious matter.

Surely the Inquisitor wouldn’t really jail a member of his own inner circle?

“…Warden Blackwall?” he tried, after almost a minute of silence. His words echoed through the closed dungeon, the sound bouncing off the stone as though mocking the both of them.

The response was slow, and grating. A sullen, almost angry, “No.”

He had heard that voice once before on the battlefield, shouting orders or declarations of protection. “It certainly sounds like you. Do you think I’m both blind and deaf?”

The response was louder, and he heard the _clomp clomp_ of heavy boots on the floor. “I mean my name _isn’t Blackwall and I’m not a warden.”_

At first, the words didn’t register. A part of him, at first, wanted to protest, _Yes you are_ , because for all this time he had been going by the name _Warden Blackwall_ , so who else could he possibly be? But then several facts snapped into place in quick succession, things that didn’t make sense finally _did_ , and all that came out was, “Oh.”

The silence loomed all the heavier over them with the rush of wind from the other side of the far door.

Dorian couldn’t stand it. “…Who are you, then? For curiosity’s sake.”

A long, belabored sigh followed on the other end, and then a muttered, “Why not? I suppose you should know too. …My real name is Thom Rainier. I’m not a Grey Warden. I’m a coward who led the men under my command to slaughter an innocent family for a bribe and then fled punishment when my crime was found out.”

All he could think to say was, “You know, I did find it rather odd that you weren’t responding to the Fear demon’s false Calling.”

Blackwall—Rainier—let out a sardonic grunt. “So did Trevelyan. You have no idea—the lies I’ve had to tell to keep up with his questioning. Every conversation more black marks against me. ‘Why is it only Grey Wardens can kill an arch-demon?’ Like I’m supposed to know.”

Dorian snorted a little, leaning his cheek on his palm. “ _I_ know.”

“And the man is so—You what?”

“I know why. Or, well…I can _assume_ based on what I’ve seen.” He paused. It had been an extremely disturbing revelation, actually. Though he wasn’t sure entirely that he had it properly pinned down.

After waiting for Thom to ask him to elaborate, he was instead greeted with a snide, “Well, _good for you._ ”

Maybe his own interrogations had spoiled him. He’d forgotten that “insatiable hunger for knowledge” wasn’t the default for most people down here.

Eventually, with nothing better to do, he did something stupid and tried talking to him again. “If you don’t mind my saying so—”

“I _do_ mind, actually.” Rainier’s tone became almost venomous, something rather uncalled for, considering. “What makes you think I want to hear the opinion of some pampered brat who fell in with the Venatori?”

Dorian bristled but stubbornly pressed on, saying through gritted teeth, “All I meant to say was that if he thought me worthy of a chance to help the Inquisition surely he wouldn’t flinch at recruiting a man whose only sin is a single dead family.”

Rainier scoffed dismissively. “ _Only_.”

“You know what I mean. The scale of your crimes is hardly equal to mine. I’m sure you won’t be locked up in here forever. Consider your breth—your—the wardens. Look at all they did, and he still took them on.”

He heard a thud, and the slam of Rainier throwing his considerable, muscled weight against the door to his cell. “He didn’t take them on because he saw the good in what they do, the heroes that many of them still are. He did it because the damage they did _doesn’t matter to him._ If he was a moral man, I wouldn’t _be_ here. I’d be facing justice, like I deserve.”

“…Ah.” It hadn’t properly occurred to him that mercy was the undesired outcome. “Well, I politely disagree.”

“Why in Andraste’s name are you still talking to me?”

Maybe if he’d been living a decent life for the past two years Dorian might have had more patience, but he didn’t, and he considered himself a saint for not snapping at the man before this point. “Because I have read _reports_ on you, you great oaf.”

No reply.

Well, if anything he was beginning to understand that the luxury of being able to see someone’s reactions to what he said was something he had ill appreciated. “You’re an unwashed brute but you’re no thug. You went through towns killing bandits that preyed on refugees, arming farmers to protect against thieves, fighting darkspawn, and overall trying to be some fairytale hero. That’s not nothing.”

“It is nothing.”

“Your name should be _Brick_ wall, you impossible—”

“I killed a family.” Rainier’s voice was firm and obviously coming through clenched teeth. “Not because I was mistaken, or because of some lack of control, but because I was a greedy coward. I destroyed the lives of each of my men, men who were guilty of no crime but their loyalty to me. I let a noble man die because I wasn’t strong enough to be the recruit he needed, and then made a mockery of his name to ease my own guilt. I thought I could make it right—I wanted to make it right. I turned myself in, thought it was finally over, and now…Now here I am. With the scum like you who lie, and kill, and duck the consequences for it because the _high Inquisitor_ decides he has use of them. Just…leave me in peace.”

What exactly could he say to counter that? Tell him he was in good company? Dorian understood guilt, and regret. Of waking up in the middle of the night sometimes, bleary and tired and wishing you were someone else. That was what drink was for, after all. For men like them. For a minute, he genuinely considered just doing as he wished. Give him that, at least. He was not entirely bereft of courtesy.

Then, after that minute, he sneered, “Well, unfortunately for you, Thom Rainier, _I’m bored_.”

 

Trevelyan didn’t come down to the dungeons for the five days that Thom was his neighbor. So, as part of his valiant efforts to keep his mind from peeling itself apart Dorian instead pestered and needled at Thom. It seemed like a fair tradeoff.

He was regaling Dorian with the horrors of the time when an actual, real Grey Warden visited Skyhold, himself saved only by the fact that she was a traveling recruiter herself and had never met the real Blackwall, when there was a clang of the doors opening that shut him up.

Dorian was less eager to run to the bars this time, but that was only because he’d thought it was their guard bringing in food. He straightened up when he saw this was not the case.

Solas. The hobo mage with dirt stained toes.

Evidently Trevelyan was just far too put off by Rainier’s stench to come down himself. Or busy. Maker knows he couldn’t begrudge him for either thing.

Dorian tried to smile politely at him, sitting up and holding out his hands expectantly. He knew the routine that Trevelyan had put in place for his encouraged cooperation—allowed to leave the cell but supervised and shackled. Unpleasant in some respects but far, far better than being forced to sit in there with nothing to do all day except wait for his next interview.

But Solas shook his head, opening the door without slapping the cuffs on him. “You have been more than well behaved thus far. The Inquisitor feels such restraints are no longer necessary.”

It was hard not to gape, despite the fact that it was an obvious ploy. Make him feel more at home in Skyhold, make him more trusting of the Inquisition and more willing to divulge some juicier secrets than where the Red Templars were doing their recruiting. He wouldn’t fall for it. But it was quite a gamble, nonetheless. “And what if I attempt something, hm? Are you going to beat me into submission all by yourself?”

“I did not say I necessarily agreed with the Inquisitor’s opinion on this.” Solas smiled, a sort of taunting expression and yet also disarmingly friendly. “But I’m sure I can handle one mage with his magic blocked, yes.”

Well, Dorian knew better than another escape attempt, anyway. If he could take a positive out of it then at least he could be reasonably sure that eventual death by execution wasn’t waiting for him here.

Rainier sat sullen in his cell as they left for the library—cleared of all patrons for the evening, of course—and Solas and Dorian exchanged no words between them while en route. Unlike some other prisoners, he didn’t bask in the sunlight and fresh air as they walked from the dungeons to Skyhold’s main building. It was too cold for that, just like everywhere in the South. So, briskly walking to get out of the open air as quickly as possible, it didn’t take long before they were surrounded by the smell of parchment and rows and rows of old books.

Dorian had only been up here a couple times. Never with Trevelyan; the two of them couldn’t be seen in public together. He had been so pleased to find that they weren’t as intellectually bereft as he thought, but that had been quickly lessened upon the discovery that most of the books in this little reading haven that were on the subject of magic were utter, propagandistic garbage.

\--Everything on Tevinter, anyway.

“Make your selection quickly, please,” Solas said calmly, positioning himself near the stairwell. Above them was the sound of wings fluttering, the tower also finding use as an aviary for their messenger birds. Dorian had initially wondered if it would be possible to commandeer one for himself, send out a request for help or report on the Inquisition’s inner workings to Calpernia, find some way to sabotage them from within. Now he wondered how much bird shit made its way down to the Elven scholar’s study below, and suppressed a snicker.

Instead he said, maybe a little loudly, “I know which one I want. Saw it last time. Won’t be but a moment while I find it.”

If only he could more precisely remember which shelf it had been on.

Out of the stillness, Solas spoke up again. “Does it bother you, to be led around like a criminal by an elf?”

Dorian paused, turning to look at him in confusion. “Led around by an elf? –What, as though this is intended to be some particular offense? Do I seem upset to you?”

“Merely curious. I am quite familiar with Tevinter views on elves.”

“Well, if you want me to be square with you, I’d rather not be led around like a criminal at all. But such is the price of being captured by one’s enemies.” He paused, dragging his fingers over the spine of each book as he searched. It should be here, but it wasn’t. “For the record, I’m not like my other countrymen when it comes to reveling in how we destroyed a marvelously advanced magical society out of our own narcissism.”

“An irrelevant point.” Solas’ voice was thin, stern. “What Tevinter is now has nothing to do with what it was then. And elves today are not the elvhen of Arlathan. I realize this goes against the premise Corypheus fed you, but you would do well to remember this.”

“The—” Dorian sucked in some air, biting back a million responses he could make to that. “The point I was trying to make is that, yes, you are an elf. But you’re a skilled mage too, and I can respect that.”

After a short silence he turned to look behind him again. Solas’s brows were pinching a little as he spoke. “And so if I were not a mage, you would have no respect for me at all, then?”

“I—What? No! That’s not what I—” It didn’t matter what this man thought, and yet it did also, in a way. Dorian was not immune to the effect of being around intelligent people. Not immune to the desire to be liked, no matter how much that desire had cost him growing up. “—I just meant to say that you aren’t… _just_ an—what I mean is, the way my country treats elves is—I’m against it.”

“So says the Tevinter supremacist. How noble!”

And of course there was no retort that Dorian could give for that, so he frowned at the literature around him and said nothing.

He didn’t look back even when he heard behind him, the lecturing tone gone in favor of cool indifference, “It is interesting to hear such a perspective come from you. Rather like Calpernia’s views on slaves, if our information is to be believed.”

“The whole ‘uplifting’ business? Oh yes, she’s quite serious about that,” Dorian replied quietly, moving to another shelf. “Very noble intentions, that one.”

“Someone may do a great many evil deeds with noble intentions.”

“I…Yes.”

He wasn’t sure where he stood with the elven mage by the end of it—it was the first actual conversation they had had, and instead of ending resolutely at a solid understanding it just sort of died, limping along as he continued looking and then eventually gave up and just picked the first book that looked interesting.

Maybe the talking meant something. That they were getting a feel for him. Was that a good sign? Testing the waters, perhaps. He wouldn’t be surprised if the Inquisition had something else in mind for him that it was preparing to carry out. For a man who delighted in violence as he did, Trevelyan had a very high enthusiasm for repurposing people instead of killing them. Just the other day, he had been asking him his opinion on Crassius Servis.

Though, Servis wasn’t the worst acquisition they could make. The man was undoubtedly a snake, but at the very least he liked to keep his nose somewhat clean, and was excellent at making a case for himself. His usefulness in funneling out supplies far outweighed the low number of innocents who had died at his hand, at any rate.

Certainly, they would not have _Dorian_ smuggling.

 

When they got back, Rainier was gone. Dorian wasn’t sure if he was pleased for that or not. The man was not good company, but he was still company, and truthfully he didn’t seem like an altogether bad sort. A little too self-punishing, perhaps. Classless. It wasn’t going to be fun being alone again.

But he had been back in his cell for five minutes when he received another visitor.

He appeared like a sudden shadow, a blink and then not only was he there, but he had _always_ been there, like he’d been waiting patiently for Dorian’s eyes to suddenly focus and see him. He was gangly and garbed in clothing of patchwork with poorly done stitches, dirty and heavily bloodstained. The only feature that was distinctly recognizable was the hat, so large that it drooped over him like a sad mushroom, dented on top and frayed around the edges.

And while Dorian was not particularly proud of this, he did scream a little when all this sunk in.

“I’m sorry,” the boy said, eyes wide and pale, though not referring to having startled him. “You went up there for it, but it wasn’t in the library. Maryden was composing.”

In his hand was the copy of the book that he’d been looking for.

Dorian did not take it. “You’re the demon.”

“Not a demon. Not a spirit now, either. I’m me. I’m Cole.”

“How specific.” In spite of himself, a brief twinge of curiosity stayed him from demanding to be left alone. He had been so interested to hear the reports on this creature, from both the scant few Red Templars who had survived Therinfal and the Venatori who remembered him clearly enough to write down their observations. He had never seen a being of his kind before. Spirits weren’t people—that was a basic tenant of Tevinter philosophy on them, perhaps in part to make it less uncomfortable to bind and control them to use against one’s enemies (or perform party tricks). They were merely apparitions of the fade, twisted into ghastly shapes as a mockery of mortal form.

\--Like many things that Tevinter taught, this was very plainly not true.

Dorian couldn’t stop himself from asking questions, leaning in on the bars a little. “What exactly do you do? What manner of being are you? I mean—I know you can kill. I’ve seen plenty on that. But is that all you do?”

The spirit gave a slight moment of consideration before replying, “I hear hurts, and I help.”

He couldn’t help snorting at that. “You…hear hurts? How exactly does that work, like someone crying out in pain and you go heal them or something?”

“In a sense.” There was a brief pause, and then a watery whisper of, “I can show you. I can hear yours. Sometimes it’s very loud. So much shouting.”

“What are you talking ab—”

"Shouting turns to pleading, tears streaking down screaming cheeks, _mouth coppery from biting on my tongue, 'I'll be better, please stop, it hurts'.”_

All of the color drained from Dorian’s face. “How do you know that?”

“ _I am blank, and nothing, and worthless_. You tried to get better, but it got set all wrong—”

The severity of Dorian’s voice came alongside a feeling of numbness that spread to the tips of his fingers. “Whatever you want, demon, you won’t have it from me.”

The boy barely moved, barely responded in any visual fashion. “I just want to help.”

Like that wasn’t the creepiest thing he’d ever heard. Like he hadn’t heard that exact same sentiment by people whose idea of _helping_ involved—

“It’s a tangled knot, people you loved but who hurt you, wrong paths and alleyways and stumbling blocks and walls that disappear when you aren’t looking. If I could pull it free—"

“ _Don’t you dare do a single fucking thing to my head_.”

His words echoed slightly off the small cell walls, and silence returned. True silence, like the rushing in his ears had become louder than the wind blowing in from the exterior cells.

“You’re very raw. It was…hard when you were trying to kill me, and now it’s hard because I’m more me than I was.” It was disturbing, hearing the way the spirit’s voice seemed to bubble as he spoke. Cole—that was his name. Cole tilted his hat up, looked again with those corpse-like eyes. “I’m…sorry, Dorian. I wasn’t trying to make it worse.”

There wasn’t enough in him to accept the apology or disregard it. Only, “Why are you down here?”

Cole held out the book again, like some measly little peace offering. “You wanted to read it. You asked for a candle and matches.”

Dorian swallowed down the reminded indignity of having to light a candle with sulfur on a stick like some dirty peon instead of just snapping his fingers for it. “How thoughtful of you. If I accept your gift will you leave me be?”

“If you want.”

“Then go.” He took the book in his hands, and as quiet as a shadow Cole was gone. Despite his interest, a squeezing pressure seemed to lift off of his chest.

The book showed signs of both obvious battering and very recent repair. A binding that had torn free was newly replaced. Crumpled pages had been pressed. A leather cover that was quite obviously newer than the yellowed material within belied the fact that the previous one had torn off. When Dorian flicked absently through the pages, in addition to the old book smell he could detect a whiff of some cleaner, some potion they had applied to get the stench out when it was probably dropped in some bog or Mabari pen.

Apparently not a tome that was well appreciated in the South. At least, before it found its way into the Inquisition’s collection.


	8. Snake with Peacock Feathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My buffer of completed chapters is gone. Wish me luck in finishing the rest (there's a very, very substantial amount of writing in them already, I will say).

The Winter Palace was positively enormous.

It galled him a little to admit even to himself but Skyhold was _smaller_ than the royal palace of Orlais. They weren’t even being allowed into the whole building, only the areas set aside for the party. Trevelyan wagered that he still hadn’t even seen half of it. It would be nice if the place got besieged by demons, and then he could explore it properly while clearing them out.

Then, he’d be fighting in the company of friends with all his weapons and armor at hand instead of navigating a pit of sharks alone in nothing but a ceremonial uniform.

There had been soirees in Ostwick. Lots of them, many of which he’d been forced to attend. But never as anyone important. Never as anyone worth paying attention to. He had attended them as the ne’er do well brat with nothing to show for himself, glowering in the corner. Sometimes he’d even be so far below the radar that he could go through people’s things in the guest suite, swipe Lady So-and-So’s prized necklace and put it in Lord Such-and-Such’s travel bag. Then watch the ensuing chaos when the “theft” was discovered.

Today, it was Cole and Varric rifling through people’s belongings in the Guest Wing. Today, all eyes were on him, and while he couldn’t deny enjoying the way he could wrap them all around his fingers with just a passing compliment and an open ear, their eyes were beginning to feel like shackles.

Sort of like the outfit Josephine had made him wear.

He could admit to some degree of vanity, and he liked wearing clothing that made him more attractive. But the height of fashion didn’t call to him, didn’t suit him. Despite the constant forays into the library Trevelyan was an intensely physical man, and he liked the armor that he’d had commissioned for that. Light, form fitting but not enough to constrict, black jacket with red accents and golden, polished buckles--it was his best look. Something that allowed him to do what made him _proud_ , something that was very resistant to staining with blood, and was not very likely to be noticeable even if it did.

At least the pale red color of the uniform resisted whatever substance was coating the candied nuts that Sera flicked his way as he passed by her.

“Kissup,” she sneered, full of fire and snide remarks from all the dead bodies she had seen in the servant’s quarters. All the “little people” sacrificed for the Great Game.

Trevelyan didn’t care about the Great Game, nor did he really care about the “little people”, but he cared for Sera and so muttered low, discreetly passing a small opaque jar her way, “We have a lead in the royal gardens, so slip out with the others when you have the chance. When this is all over, dump this in the food. Should brighten things up a bit.”

That brought the slightest smile to her face, blowing him a raspberry as she slipped away. He watched her go, ached to follow, and instead parted the crowd to find Cassandra.

Someone called his name as he did. He spared them the briefest of glances—Lady Fortier. Vivienne had pointed her out earlier, and they had spoken briefly out in the vestibule. He ignored her and found his Seeker glowering near the dance floor, either looking disinterested and contemptuous out of genuine spite or a very good performance of it. And Trevelyan didn’t take her for an actor.

“I have updates,” he said, sliding in next to her. Beside them were three men loudly gossiping away, masking their conversation for all the rest of the crowd. “Florianne has directed me to the royal gardens to investigate. I’m sending everyone that way.”

No, Cassandra was not a good actor. She turned her head, eyebrows lifting and a bit of relief trickling into her voice. “Really? Then, I do not have to mingle here any longer?”

A little, fresh, and easily ignored part of him felt bad for crushing the expression of hope on her face, while the rest of him had to fight to restrain his grin. “No, I’m keeping you and Solas here. You’re to watch the Empress and make sure nothing happens to her while our investigation is ongoing.”

She dropped in utter disgust. “What? You want me to act as her bodyguard? You must be joking.”

“Now now, Cassandra—how do you expect to meet your fairy-tale prince if you don’t make a showing at the ball?”

She looked like she wanted to smack him upside the head, possibly with a spiky glove, and he was overcome with pure fondness. Just for that he dropped the goofy smile that had already managed to make its way onto his face and said, more seriously, “I’ve already informed Solas of his duties. Wait for my signal. Make sure to alert Cullen and Leliana if you notice anything even remotely noteworthy.”

“Of course.”

Trevelyan peeled away from her before their conversation attracted too much notice, keeping his ears open for anything more that they could use. People were looking at him, tittering behind their hands or sneering through their wineglasses, and it was hard to repress the conviction that they were gossiping about him. Or, well. The conviction that their gossip was at his expense. Obviously, they were talking about him.

He’d spoken to so many of them already; it was too much to ask that he keep socializing with them. Toying with silly twit nobles who thought him “quaint” for being a Marcher was only fun for so long, and his personal timer was running out.

Being out there killing assassins with his people sounded much more fun, instead of being trapped in machinations and moral gray areas. The lying and charming may have been second nature, but that didn’t keep it from being exhausting.

Lady Fortier called for him again, louder and closer this time. The corner of his mouth twitched. Ahead of him was Germain de Chalons—someone Josephine had told him about specifically, Duke Gaspard’s uncle, someone who could be a great asset in testing their connection to him. But Lady Fortier was close enough to notice the rebuff and so instead of getting to where he wanted to be, he plastered on an easy grin and turned around.

“My Lord Trevelyan, how have you been enjoying the party so far? I’ve been hoping to find you again all night.” Her mask was brightly painted in pale pastels. It might have been expensive but it looked gaudy and cheap.

“Quite well, thank you. It is quite unlike anything I’ve seen in Ostwick.” Ostwick, _not_ Skyhold. Even if saying such a thing would also be true. “I’m afraid one tends to get lost in the crowd so easily among such distinguished company.”

She had the most annoying giggle, Lady Fortier. “Oh yes indeed. Actually, now that I’ve got you there’s someone I was hoping to introduce you to, he’s the most charming fellow. Let me go fetch him.”

Trevelyan ground his teeth, trying very hard not to growl. “I’d be delighted to meet anyone you think I would hit it off with, but I—You’re not listening, okay.”

She continued to wave, whistling. Whoever it was she was trying to signal was just out of sight. “He’s a one Lord Paviour, a most interesting character. He tells me he’s an explorer much like yourself.”

“Really, that’s not—”

She left.

He turned to look. Germain was walking away.

Dammit.

Clattering footsteps hearkened the return of the woman who’d kidnapped him into this conversation, and he took a moment to compose himself once more, thinking only of how he might get rid of both her and this third party without his usual tactic of vanishing from sight and slipping away. Then he turned back.

And was struck dumb.

The lord in question wore an outfit that draped him in a sunless dusk, which was a bit purple in phrase but really the only way Trevelyan could think to describe it. Faded blue and green garments with swirling patterns of shining gold and silver, intricate buttons and drapery that accentuated his figure rather than outright hiding it. Somewhat like Morrigan the outfit showed just a bit less skin than was inappropriate—one well-toned arm and shoulder, in particular.

The light beak shape of the nose on his mask couldn't hide the impeccably styled and instantly recognizable mustache on his lip, but the hooded eye-holes did an excellent job of obscuring all but the shine of his pupils. It was clearly made to match the suit, all blue and green and gold with sparkling jewels that alternated in their brilliance depending on how he held his head. The whole thing was capped off by a curl of peacock feathers near his right temple--all show and flash that betrayed little of the actual substance underneath.

Most appropriate for a man like him, Trevelyan thought.

It was actually attractive, quite unlike the hideous garments that the Orlesians wore.

"The Herald of Andraste." If he hadn't known who it was before, the mocking lilt of his voice as he said those words would have given it away. "So glad I’ve finally made your acquaintance. For someone so illustrious you're a hard man to find."

He tried not to gape. “…I’m sorry, I must have misheard when she said your name, Lord…?”

“Paviour,” Lady Fortier cut in, all yellow teeth and high laughter. “He told me he’s been dying to meet you.”

“Has he.”

“Oh my, yes!” She patted Dorian Pavus on the shoulder companionably, and he twitched in a way that suggested he would have liked to set her on fire just for the sound of her voice. “Tell us again about how your family’s holdings in Rivain were sacked by those awful cultists recently.”

“Ah right. All of our silk money, gone. Broke my poor mother’s heart,” he said, putting a hand on his sternum and injecting a bit of sob into his voice. Maker, the man was _terrible._ “If it weren’t for us still having the ancestral estate in Lydes and the vacation house in Ghislain, I would be an utter _wreck_.”

Trevelyan leveled a cold stare at him for almost a good minute before he was able to reply without snickering, “It really gives one an appreciation for how much the average person suffers in all this madness.”

“Such truth in that,” Fortier added, not getting the joke.

“Quite.” Dorian stood up straighter, grinning wider just to show off those perfect teeth again. “Do forgive me, I should introduce myself _properly._ Lord Paviour de Jader. I have been watching the Inquisition most keenly, Your Worship.”

“I bet you have.” Trevelyan cleared his throat and bowed, taking Dorian’s hand and brushing his lips over the many rings on his fingers. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lord Paviour.”

It did something for erasing the man’s self-satisfied smirk, if only briefly. “Aren’t you a charmer,” he muttered, slowly pulling his hand away.

“I try.”

“So!” Dorian said brightly, to mask the brief slip. “I heard that while you were on your way here you aided in your soldiers’ efforts with suppressing the corpse insurrection in the Exalted Plains. That sounds terribly exciting.”

Trevelyan tilted his head a little. “Interested in necromancy, are you Lord Paviour?”

Behind the mask his eyes narrowed back. “Now, I didn’t say _that_.”

Lady Fortier fanned herself, adjusting her mask. “So much battle in the plains already. Hardly surprising that the dead get in on the act.”

“Did I hear correctly that one of the Venatori responsible got away? I’m curious—I would have thought the Inquisition’s reach inescapable.”

Ah. Was this a genuine jab for information or gloating? Trevelyan gave him a level stare. “Sometimes when you’re hunting, your prey has to think it’s cleverer than you. Sometimes strategy involves letting it run loose, back to its nest.”

Which was true. And better than to admit that they had fallen for a body double. Dorian regarded him cautiously at that, which felt much like a victory.

Then, evidently, it seemed his patience had run thin. He turned to their third wheel. “My dear, it seems Remache de Lydes would like to have a word with you,” he said, lightly touching her shoulder like he thought her diseased and pointing in the direction of the dance floor.

She gasped and excused herself.

He glanced around quickly before letting out a quick “Ah!”, inclining his head towards a nearby balcony, unoccupied. “We can talk properly there, don’t you think?”

The moment they were out of earshot Trevelyan jabbed, feeling a burst of excitement and comradery to be speaking to someone he knew under the mask, “ _Paviour?_ What is your first name, Sand?”

That got him a sharp back of a laugh. “Don’t make fun. I never claimed to be talented at anagrams. And my name doesn’t have a lot of letters.”

There was a little bounce in his step as he trailed behind. “I would expect a man of your…standing to be busy for Orlesian politics. What brings you to the Winter Palace?”

“Aside from the finery and exotic wines?” When he wasn’t looking, Dorian had slipped two glasses from a passing servant, full of dark red liquid. One he took a drink from. The other he swirled around a little. “Have you _tried_ this, by the way? Simply exquisite. I insist you have some.”

Trevelyan took the glass as he pushed through the balcony doors and felt the chill of the night air, brow furrowing just a touch. Were they playing a game as well? As soon as the doors closed he said, head tilting, “You’re being awfully chummy with me, considering our history.”

Dorian’s chuckle sounded both practiced and sincere, and he put a hand to his chest as though wounded. “My dear Inquisitor, this is a _party_. Is not the point of an Orlesian ball to act chummy with people you plan to stab in the back later? _You_ were the one who suggested we be civil, after all.”

He looked cautiously at the wine, imagining all the opportunities that there had been to slip something inside. “I just wasn’t expecting you to take me up on that offer.”

"Well, can’t _all_ be combat in freezing cold conditions. Have to have some fun in there too. –Go on. Consider the wine a peace offering.”

Pride and bravado won out. He took the glass and tipped it up just a little bit, just enough to let a single swallow flow past his lips, just enough to accept his presence there.

"Hm." Trevelyan let the wine rest on his tongue for a moment, savoring it as he'd been taught by his eldest sister one evening when she got bored during his burgeoning youth. "Excellent body. Finishes well. Though, I do taste the lingering flavor of…" His eyes closed, thoughtful. "Deathroot."

He took another long sip.

Dorian smiled, teeth glittering in the dim light. "In Tevinter, if you don't attend a formal event with at least three antidotes in your stomach you're practically _begging_ to be the evening's entertainment."

"Is this quite like parties you've been to in Tevinter, then?" Trevelyan set the wineglass down on a small table near the railing. As much as he would have liked to continue showing off, the concoction he'd had Adan brew up for him wouldn't ward off against the stomachache that deliberately imbibing a glass full of poison would cause.

“The only thing it’s missing is sacrificial slaves and blood magic.” Dorian’s expression was unreadable under his mask, but his tone was teasing. “I hear the murder has already been covered. My, but do I love having a front row seat to the drama.”

“I suppose it would be too much to hope for that you’ve approached me like this with the intent of telling me _who’s_ going to be doing the murdering.”

“Tut tut. Can’t provide you with _all_ the answers. This is Orlais, after all.”

Trevelyan gave him a pointed look—softened a little by the wine he’d already consumed, but then he wasn’t exactly a lightweight. “You leave me curious, then. What exactly do you want from me, now that you have my attention?”

Dorian tapped his lips thoughtfully. “I was hoping to dance, actually.”

That surprised him. “Dance? With you? …Are you joking?”

It wasn’t a question born of malice or mocking intent—it was just not something Trevelyan had expected him to say. In response, Dorian bent over with a sweep of his arm and a great deal of flourish, glittering with the movement like some otherworldly spirit.

"If you can spare time for that elaborate display with the Duchess," he purred, leaning into his bow so that his face was almost entirely obscured by his mask, "Surely you could lose a few minutes in a little waltz with me. I'll even let you lead."

Only for a fraction of a second did Trevelyan hesitate.

"Alright. But only because you're so devastatingly charming."

Dorian looked up enough that his smirk was visible. "I am, at that."

There was no denying the energy that practically crackled just under his skin as he took his hand. It could easily have been _actual_ electricity--certainly he had seen enough of it in combat to know the sort of spells Dorian favored. But it was pleasant--a flush of warmth instead of a hard bite. He hummed lightly as he smoothly moved into the dance.

Between the two of them, Dorian had the initiative to start talking first. “I must say, you’re much more restrained in person than I was expecting. The way they talk about you in there, you’ve been the perfect gentleman.”

Trevelyan lifted an eyebrow, though inwardly he glowed at the praise. “Were you expecting less of me?”

“Even outside of having seen the _beast_ you are in a fight, one does hear stories. And skim reports. I must admit, since Emprise du Lion you have become a…point of curiosity with me.”

Long as he might to confess that Dorian had him curious as well, he bit down on his tongue and swept them casually along the balcony railing so he could glance out into the gardens. A small ripple of air near a flowerbed of Embrium—Cole?—but no activity yet. Nothing to cause concern.

He felt the whisper of a hand on his cheek, and he turned back to Dorian, suppressing his startlement. “Eyes over here, Inquisitor.”

“Just appreciating the gardens.”

“While we’re together I’d have your attention.” There was a beat as their footsteps aligned, as the sound of the resident bard switching songs drifted through the air, and Dorian spoke up more brightly. "Indulge me; do you _honestly_ believe that you're sent by Andraste herself?"

The question was mocking, thought to be rhetorical and with a clear follow-up prepared. Trevelyan smiled, pleasantly. "Of course not."

And Dorian laughed anyway, genuine and golden laughter of surprise instead of derision. "Really? That's _rich_. And yet you go on letting those people think you're some kind of holy figure."

"It gives them hope." The dance was quick, but not so much that he had to focus on the steps. He spun, enjoying the rhythm they had.

"And makes it easier to command their loyalty, I imagine."

"There is that." His turn. “Do _you_ think that Corypheus is really going to become a god, Dorian?”

A moment of hesitation, another weakness between the gaps in his armor. He would remember. “Divinity is irrelevant—he represents power, and that’s all that matters. A cudgel to bring the world into line. True, his methods are…indelicate, but that’s what men like me are for.”

Perhaps realizing he’d spoken too much, Dorian fell silent. Trevelyan jabbed. “So, what, he brings everyone to heel through force and then you give all the wounded parties gift baskets of wine and grapes as an apology?”

The smile that followed then looked genuine, and small. “Maybe throw in a cheese wheel for you and yours in Ostwick. Assuming you aren’t a heap of slag and bones by the time it’s all over.” And then he added, a little more quietly, “Which would be a pity, now that we’ve properly met. …You’re quite fetching, you know.”

“I—what?”

Like Commander Cullen, Trevelyan had been fielding flirtatious overtures all night, even if not as many. There was a certain protocol to it that made it easy to react gracefully—always a sort of leadup to warn him first, _Do you see a lot of battle, then?_ , or _You must have so many suitors!_ Even in Ostwick he had learned the script, used it successfully on a handful of occasions.

But comments like that didn’t come from people like _Dorian_.

His voice was stronger now, speaking through a smirk. “Don’t act modest. You must know how _good_ you look. Strutting about in your armor on the battlefield, that silly little grin you wear when you think you’re winning.”

He floundered. This was not how the wordplay was supposed to go. He stopped dancing, bringing them to a halt, trying to reorient himself, readjust to play the Game better. It almost escaped his notice that as the two of them began again, Dorian was leading.

“Look at you, you blush so _easily_. Are you shy, Herald?” He sounded mocking, but not cruelly so. Playful, spoiling _._ Trevelyan suddenly wasn’t sure he was even reading him correctly. He wasn’t Orlesian. He wasn’t like the others. “How surprisingly adorable of you. Or are you just not used to getting compliments from other men?”

“I—I’ve gotten compliments.” He focused on his feet, and pushed through the hitch in his voice. Was he so see-through? Was this a trick? His hand tightened a little over Dorian’s. “I’ve _given_ compliments. I can think of several I could give you.” _But I **don’t** because our innuendo is supposed to be about **murdering each other**_ **,** he wanted to say.

The dark little chuckle and subtle tilt of Dorian’s head made him realize he’d miscalculated. His footwork was perfect, but tripped from his internal scripts his speech was failing him. “Oh?”

“I…” Trevelyan’s cheeks burned. Desperately he tried to picture himself slitting the other man’s throat, tried to remember moments where he’d launched an arrow right for his heart with intent to kill, but his mind was in the wrong place and imagining the wrong things. And wrong though they were, they were too pleasant to let go. “—As if you need me to tell you how handsome you are.”

“Oh, of course not. Anyone with eyes can see how bewitching I am.”

“I do have those.” The words came out before he could stop them. He waited, tense, to be mocked for that, but the remark just made Dorian laugh again. He was beginning to grow most enamored with the sound.

“They are a rather lovely shade of green, I will say.” The flirtatious note briefly dropped from his voice, and Trevelyan imagined he was being studied. “Interesting choice, to come to a masquerade without a mask on.”

“It sends a message,” he replied, almost reciting word for word what he’d spoken about with Josephine, the excuse he’d come up with instead of just telling her he didn’t like not having peripheral vision. “The Inquisition is here on its own side, on its own authority. We have nothing to hide, and we’re here to expose the truth.”

“Such bravado! Expose the truth? The identity of the dear Empress’ assassin, you mean?” Dorian took the bait and steered back to the conversation he wanted, though the slight mocking tone made it feel less like a triumph than it should have. “You certainly have a very colorful cast of suspects. The brutish warhawk vying for the throne, the cutthroat elven spy with a grudge to settle, the dread witch with Celene in her thrall, and then, of course, me. The handsome and charming mage from Tevinter, land of depravity and backstabbing, who has already tried to kill you a few times already.”

Trevelyan said nothing, grateful for games of Wicked Grace with Varric where he’d worked on his bluffing. He rather liked listening to Dorian talk. They were awfully close now, Dorian slipping one hand down further on his back, tracing his spine through the uniform.

“And, of course, if it _is_ me, you could save the whole empire just by keeping me occupied for a little while. Something to think about,” he murmured, breath tickling his ear. They had slowed considerably, no longer the brisk pace of a waltz but something slower, more intimate. The rest of the party seemed so far away, Trevelyan’s heartbeat loud and uncontrollably fast. It was all a distraction, of course, he knew that. There was still an assassin out _there_ , possibly several from several different factions, and here he was being toyed with by one of the few people he unambiguously knew was out to get him.

But he was enjoying himself.

No, no. He needed to think. How had Dorian made it into the party to begin with?

Dorian was here under a false name, in a disguise. Which wouldn’t be so difficult, considering everyone else was, but there was no room in an event with the Empress for lax security. Even under a disguise, no one got in who wasn’t known to the guards, no one who didn’t have their name in a registry somewhere. So then, what identity could he craft that would be worthy of making it into a soiree of this importance? What identity could he steal that he could reasonably impersonate to people who surely knew them? Even a social recluse was a socialite in Orlais. It made no sense. How had he not been caught, flaunting himself on the main floor?

Unless he had a friend in the Winter Palace.

Someone who would know him for who he was and play along with whoever he pretended to be. Someone who had enough influence to persuade the guards and other guests that this man was not from Tevinter. Someone he had left out of his roster of potential assassins. Someone who had been in charge of the guest list.

“—It’s Florianne, isn’t it?”

Sometimes being blunt had its benefits; Dorian going stiff, the coy smile momentarily falling from his face. He fetched it back, but Trevelyan missed nothing, showing his own teeth in a feral grin.

There was nothing sweeter than solving a puzzle. Even if it had mercilessly killed the mood. “It is. Wonderful! I love it when I’m right.”

“Aren’t you clever.” The dance was over, their feet stilled. There was a venomous note in that lovely voice, like poison at the bottom of a wine glass. “And here I was thinking you’d be easily distracted.”

Their little truce had worn out. And it was time to go. “If you’ll excuse me, Lord Pavus.”

His hand slipped from Dorian’s fingers.

Magic made the air snap just before it was cast, like the silence before an explosion or the tide receding before a wave crashed. He bent backwards as Dorian swiftly brought his hand towards his face, flickering blue flames emanating from his grasp. Just barely did he avoid getting burned, so barely that the tip of his bangs caught fire as he stumbled away.

He licked his fingers and smothered the little ember in his hair.

Subtlety. There was still a ballroom full of people inside and they were still playing the Game.

“What’s the matter, Inquisitor?” Dorian crooned, snapping his fingers and allowing another spark to flash between them. “Don’t like playing with fire?”

Yes, this was the dance he knew better. “On the contrary, I _adore_ it.”

Regrettably they were too close to use his bow and arrow—once again—but Heir was an excellent teacher and the little knives tucked away in his sash were very sharp. As Dorian moved to cast again Trevelyan sliced at his fingers, just barely missing. He stepped forward and pivoted on his foot, smacking hard into the ulnar nerve on Dorian’s left arm, rewarded with it going weak and losing whatever magical energy that was building in it.

That still left the right hand, unfortunately, slamming into his stomach even as he was attempting to cut into him with his knife.

A noise escaped his throat as all air left his lungs, though he muffled it as best he could. He doubled over in pain—and then slammed his head upward against Dorian’s jaw when he felt him bend over him. There was a loud snap, hopefully not the sound of his skull cracking, and he dragged himself away as the air got hot again.

He tripped, briefly lost his balance in the dodge, and grabbed the balcony railing to steady his feet.

Readjusting his own footing, and rubbing his jaw with his free hand, Dorian gripped the railing himself. Immediately it sizzled and hummed and filled him with pain. Electricity tightened his fingers into a death grip on the metal, and soon enough his legs gave out. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t fight, just felt his jaw clench so hard his teeth might crack.

When he was released, his hand fell limply from the railing, and it was all he could do to land on his knees instead of falling fully on his front.

The air was spinning still, his muscles were twitching, but in one smooth motion he tugged free another small knife with a little skeleton pommel hidden away in his sash and stuck Dorian with it as he bent over him.

Mark of Death.

At least, that’s what Heir had called it. Trevelyan didn’t feel the need to be quite _that_ dramatic; it was more the technique than the instrument that was important, the ability to locate on another person’s body the pressure point that made them weak. To make them go down cleanly and quietly. It was rather pleasing to behold up close, seeing him clutch his side and fall back, huffing out a shaky breath. “You’ve learned a new move.”

“I’ve learned _plenty_ of new moves,” he hissed, getting to his feet and doing a sweep with his palm that, were this a few moments earlier, probably would have been easily blocked.

Dorian’s mask fell, exposing eyes glinting with murderous intent, and something else, something Trevelyan couldn’t recognize on his face.

Their fight continued from there, but it was clear who the winner was at that point. Trevelyan’s head was ringing, blood rushing through his ears, and his body was sore, but he was otherwise uncompromised and Dorian was not.

When he was able to get close enough again he tugged the skull handled knife from where he had stuck it in his side, not pressing it to his throat so much as grabbing Dorian’s neck with his free hand and pushing it against the blade. They both froze. Dorian’s face of guarded fear, Trevelyan’s of bestial delight, the thrill of success. A small, thin trickle of blood dripped from where the sharp edge just barely cut into his flesh.

Nearly breathless, he said, “I win.”

And then…he hesitated.

His own voice sounded far away as he spoke, brow furrowing in confusion. “You’re right, it…is a pity.”

A cry rang out from the courtyard below them, alongside the sharp, reality-tearing squeal of a rift opening. Trevelyan whirled around to see green cracking through the air and lanky demons crawling out.

In the next moment, Dorian had upended him over the railing.

"Give your friends my regards!" he called after him, which would have probably sounded more clichédly villainous if he wasn't wheezing and coughing blood.

Trevelyan twisted in the air, the world around him seeming to slow as his eyes caught the rift. Too many times had he faced death to really believe it now. Still, it seemed a waste, to go out over something as silly as a fall. What would they write in the annals of history? The Herald of Andraste conquered by gravity?

Come to think of it, that actually sounded quite appropriate.

A blast of cold air caught him before he thwacked into the ground, sparing him the indignity of having his guts spattered all over the grass. Vivienne hauled him to his feet, her outfit crisp and clean despite the flush of battle on her cheeks.

"You're a treasure," he coughed, steadying himself. A rib or two might be cracked.

"I haven't been to a ball this fun in _ages_. Really my darling, once this whole business with Corypheus has settled we _must_ do this again." She handed him his bow. There were plenty of arrows scattered around the courtyard for his use, some of which belonged to Sera as she hurled obscenities at the terrors darting through reality towards her.

Trevelyan snorted blood and let them fly.

 

By the end of the night, the Inquisition-- and its leadership, naturally--was the prize of the ball. Practically standing atop a mountain of corpses, he bowed for the nobles and let their shocked applause wash over him like music. He was able to wear his armor again, and everything--almost everything--was right.

Empress Celene was dead. So was Duchess Florianne. Gaspard held the throne, Briala held his reigns, and the Inquisition held her favor. The final hours of the evening were spent dancing and drinking, interrupted only by a buzz of screeches and horror over a swarm of earwigs at the refreshment table, and as they left he heard sighs of relief from his inner circle. Either because the party was over or because the Orlesian Empire was saved--either was fine.

In all the congratulations few noticed the point when Trevelyan stopped talking to anyone, eyes glazed over in pensive thought.

Once more, Dorian had gotten away.

That would not happen again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s not really important, but I feel like there is an actual, canon order that is best for which location you go to and when, supported by in-universe documents and such (ex, Exalted Plains>Emerald Graves>Emprise du Lion), and I’m just kind of stomping all over it in this.


	9. Loyalties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanna say--I have been getting a lot of really lovely comments on this fic, and while I think I'm a little awkward at replying in general I am just extremely pleased to be getting feedback! This is one of those things I've been writing mostly out of self-indulgence (as is all fanfic I suppose), and I'm really glad it's coming across well. Thank you so much for reading and commenting. And for those of you who haven't commented, the kudos are well appreciated.
> 
> (and for those who haven't commented or given kudos but still check in on the fic anyway, thank you for giving it your time!)

“Your move, Commander.”

Cullen looked down at a simple chess board with the same kind of intensity that most leaders would reserve for the war table. It was rather endearing in its way—so stern and serious, brow creased in thought and face buried in his hand as he leaned over the table. Such a grim attitude from such a strapping man, youthful features a far cry from the grizzled, bearded old warmonger he’d been imagining led the Inquisition’s armies. Especially considering it was a game that Dorian took so casually that he frequently cheated when playing it.

Not that he was going to do that _now_ , flanked by soldiers and sitting opposite an ex-Templar—a southern one, at that. Though Cullen didn’t smell of lyrium, it was clear by the way he held himself around Dorian and the way he looked at him what he was. The contemptuous snort with which he’d first greeted him, so long before this little meeting they were having now. …Of course, it helped that Samson had known Cullen in Kirkwall when he was part of the order.

“Your turn, Pavus.”

There was still a little bit of derision there, but he could hardly blame the man for his suspicion. When Dorian had first offered to help him “relieve stress”, it had been with the intention of charming him and stealing the keys he had on his person, or else using him as a hostage of some kind. So it wasn’t like he _didn’t_ have anything to be on the lookout for. Even if the briefest time in his company dried up those plans in a heartbeat.

Dorian made his move almost instantly, smiling up at Cullen rather smugly. “I wouldn’t want to keep you in suspense.”

A part of him considered dropping the attitude when Cullen gave him a rather nasty warning glare, but then if he couldn’t sass his captors during a chess match then what was even the point of living?

Not that he was stupid enough to think this was simply about chess and nothing more. Perhaps with a colleague, yes. But not a prisoner of their little crusade.

Sure enough, about half an hour in, Cullen soundly whipping him at this half-hearted game, he cut in quietly, “So…about Samson.”

Dorian’s smile faltered. “Did you get the impression that the two of us were somehow well acquainted?”

“You did work together. The Inquisitor told us about your encounter with him in Emprise du Lion.” His hand lingered on his rook, expression still the carefully constructed stone of a man who had obviously tried very hard not to have any emotions and, utterly failing that, poorly buried them. “You must have some insight.”

“If I may be candid, that encounter was the only time we spoke face to face. There were letters, of course, but what can you observe from someone in mere writing?” Dorian leaned in, eyes alight and curious. “What is your interest in Samson, Commander? I know you two were both in Kirkwall.”

“We were colleagues, yes.” Cullen shook his head, eyes shooting off to the side. He wasn’t one for being questioned or doing questioning, it seemed. “Suffice it to say he never…seemed the kind of man who would do something like this.”

Well, that was curious. From where Dorian had stood, about five feet from his glowing, red lyrium infested armor, Samson had seemed _exactly_ like the kind of person who would do something like this. Not even for any righteous cause, either—there was no belief in good works in his eyes. They were drained. Used. Empty.

But out loud he merely said, “He _was_ briefly kicked out of the order, was he not?”

“For passing love notes between a mage and their sweetheart.”

That made him laugh. It probably wasn’t the best thing to do, Cullen giving him a narrow-eyed glare and tapping his chess piece on the table as he considered where to move it next. But he couldn’t help himself. It was perfect. Exactly the kind of dumb thing they would do in the South. In the Free Marches. _In Kirkwall._

Eventually, he regained enough composure to sound suitably sincere and grave. “Whatever that man was, he isn’t anymore. I won’t say that he was some monster to his own people—the foolish and angry ones perhaps, yes, but not the hopefuls. But he knows what he’s doing. He knows where it’s going. He doesn’t care. There’s no talking someone like that down.”

“And I’m sure you’d be the _expert_ , wouldn’t you?”

Dorian swallowed, and said nothing.

After enough time had passed that one of the soldiers standing guard in the room coughed against his arm, Cullen ran a hand through his so obviously ironed hair and let the fight drain out of him. For the moment. “…I have been told Carroll was there too. Another Templar I worked with, back in…Kinloch Hold.”

Dorian frowned a little bit as his memory served him, and then, with a fair bit more cheer he announced. “Oh yes. After Trevelyan caved in his skull I had his body possessed so that he might continue his mission of killing your figurehead from beyond the grave.”

Evidently Cullen found that distasteful, because he scowled and said that he would like to continue their conversation “another time”, chess game unfinished.

Oh well. Dorian was losing anyway.

Such diversions weren’t uncommon now. At least, to the extent that it no longer shocked him that people other than Leliana and the Inquisitor wanted to speak to him. He was allowed—well, not free movement, but access to places that weren’t the dungeons. The newly constructed mage tower, for example, was sometimes his home for hours at a time, helping the few who had joined the Inquisition with their research. Though never with all the knowledge at his disposal. Just parts and parcels of it.

He recognized a handful of them—some of the rebels who had been forcibly recruited into the Venatori and managed to escape Haven, such as a firebrand elf woman with a Orlesian accent who was missing a hearty chunk of her ear and had scarring on her face that stretched down past the collar on her robe. Thankfully, he had never formally met any of them. Alexius had done most of the talking. So the hatred that should have been in their eyes was instead only suspicion.

Though, while his daily contact with other people to maintain his sanity had gone up, his companionship levels remained as low as they had ever been. None of them were there to be his friend. Which was fine. At least in Skyhold he wasn’t worried that he’d be stabbed in the back without fanfare. They would have to haul him up for trial and chop his head off if he suitably offended any of them. And not any time soon, either.

Trevelyan was away. Something about a problem in the Deep Roads.

Dorian tried to ignore the little ache in his chest that the absence brought.

The last conversation they’d had wasn’t a search for information, or to pester him about Venatori cells. In fact, Dorian had recently become more forthcoming on that front all on his own. After all, it wasn’t like it hurt him any to tell them where some of the more virulent members of the organization were setting up camp last he heard. If they were smart, they would have changed their plans. And any decent reformist would have them culled when the time came anyway. He was just having the Inquisition do his dirty work for him.

So Trevelyan had been talking to him less and less about these matters—things he could just have Dorian tell Leliana on his own time—and instead drifting towards the topic of “taboo” magic. At least, magic that was taboo by Southern Chantry standards.

“How does a noble son in one of the most religious nations of the Free Marches become so enraptured with the _forbidden_ arts of—Oh, no, I’ve answered my own question.”

Trevelyan had laughed, said, “I’ve always been fascinated with magic. My sister—the youngest after me—she was a—", then paused and frowned. The positive attitude he’d come in with flickered before it came back. “Well, they took her to the Circle when I was little, but before they did I was always bothering her to light fires and freeze ponds and…things of that nature.”

Dorian had watched him evenly, remembering how horrified he’d been as a young boy when he first learned they locked up their mages in the Southern countries, and replied only, “And so you’ve graduated from skating on frozen ponds to dreaming about necromancy.”

As always, the Inquisitor had leaned in, eyes bright. “If you bring a person’s body back to life through a spirit, and the spirit gets their memories from the body and starts to think they are that person, does that count as having revived someone from death? Would their family even notice the difference?”

And without missing a beat, he replied, “Well, maybe not at first, but I think you’ll find that even the most oblivious housewife will notice when her husband’s eyes fall into his stew at dinner.”

That had made him laugh. Now that they had grown to be slightly more comfortable in each other’s company, he laughed freely and genuinely at the most ghastly of things. Dorian wished he didn’t find it so disarming.

Trevelyan hadn’t mentioned anything about his going to the Deep Roads then, save for an offhand comment of, “Apparently they’re having _earthquakes_ , which is a big deal for them I expect.”

The odds of him dying there seemed fairly low considering everything else he had endured, but supposing he did—would Dorian no longer be under his protection? He suspected Trevelyan was not the only leading force of the Inquisition, even if he was its biggest figurehead.

Thoughts of escape still passed through his head every now and then, but each time they did they were fainter and less certain. Firstly because, as he had discovered upon being allowed outside, Skyhold was essentially a giant frosty mountain in the middle of _nowhere_. He’d thought _Have_ n cold and remote; he’d been very small-minded back then, of that he was certain. If anyone left the castle or approached it they could be seen for miles, which meant that unless he had the resources to use his time-warping magic to speed up his escape—and he didn’t—he would be recaptured almost immediately.

Secondly, the desire to leave was waning in him. There was a small, stubborn part of himself that insisted that was the point, that he needed to be cautious even of their overly generous treatment, but it wasn’t like he was so emotionally attached to sleeping in tents next to spellbinding pricks who never shut up, even at ungodly hours.

Still. Even if life here had become significantly less prickly as of late, if there was one thing that Dorian had perfected through his life, it was how to avoid getting _too_ comfortable in any one place. There was no way to divine the future, after all.

At some point he would have to consider cutting and running. Unappealing as that was. But until an opportunity presented itself there was no harm in relaxing for now.

As well as one could.

Through the winding servants’ corridors he was being escorted back to his arrangements—something more comfortable than the drafty old cells, though no less guarded and locked away—when his little escort crew was stopped.

The person who stopped them was a woman whose dark skin set off the white and blue of her robes, Orlesian in design yet somehow more taste than gaudy flair, scalp shaved close with just a note of black stubble that did not obscure the shape of her skull.

He recognized her. Though she did not spend a lot of time in the mage tower, as evidently the First Enchanter did not get along very well with the Grand Enchanter.

Madame de Fer.

If this were ordinary circumstances he might greet her with a cocky grin and a scoff, but he lived at the mercy of the Inquisition now and so paid her instead a mild, deferential nod. “Madame Vivienne.”

“Ah! So the Venatori rat is capable of courtesy! I will make note,” she said gracefully, striding into the room as though she were gliding. A small box was held delicately in her thin fingers, immaculately manicured nails glistening in the light. “A moment of your time, if I may. Pavus, was it?”

Dorian tried not to look at his own nails, likely a complete mess, and nodded, as though it were up to him.

“Excellent. We haven’t had a chance to properly talk, I think. Tell me, is your new room to your liking? Well, I can imagine that _any_ room is better than sleeping in a cell, I suppose.”

The part of him that wasn’t fighting the bitter taste that her words left in his mouth was struck with a sudden and painful wave of nostalgia for Tevinter high society. In a way, it was comforting—being spoken to instead of stared at with wide, fearful eyes. “It’s satisfactory, yes. Quite nice to have a bed instead of a cot.”

“Excellent.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, plastering on a smile. “I would be polite and return the question, but then as a former Circle mage I expect you are in much the same boat regarding your new accommodations as I am, yes?”

Her eyes gleamed, and she was nothing but the clucking of her tongue and the rustle of her robes as she put a hand on her hip. “I have been doing exceptionally well for myself for quite some time now, darling. I know it must be hard to imagine, considering the rock you’ve been living under as a Tevinter reptile, but not all of us need to be held under lock and key for fear that we might suddenly explode the main hall.”

His fire came back. He couldn’t help himself. “Takes a reptile to recognize a reptile.”

Far from being offended she laughed, a low, throaty chuckle. “Don’t be ridiculous, my dear. We are not even in the same _league_. I am a trusted ally.”

“Your Inquisitor seems to trust me,” he sneered.

“Lord Trevelyan is charming and clever when he needs to be, and possessed of a most refreshing and straightforward pragmatism in his leadership,” she said, slipping in such casual praise even as it was clear she was preparing for a tear-down. “Unfortunately, he also tends to be overconfident about his abilities to _control_ some of our more…suspect resources. Such as yourself.”

“Such as myself.” He tilted his head a little curiously, glancing at the soldiers still escorting him. They looked intimidated at Madame de Fer’s presence, but not afraid. “If you think him so ill-equipped to _handle_ me, does this mean you plan to do something about it?”

He shouldn’t goad. The way he was now, and the way that she was, she could make short work of him in less than a minute. The thought was unsettling.

But Vivienne looked at her nails and said, idly, “Why my dear, why ever would I do that? I don’t wish to make an _enemy_ of him.” She turned a cold gaze his way, a note of warning in it. “You should see the delight with which he takes to his enemies. Particularly _traitors_. Most inspired.”

It didn’t take an Enchanter from the Minrathous Circle to see what she was getting at, and Dorian found himself rankling further. He couldn’t possibly be a traitor. He wasn’t _loyal_ to the Inquisition to begin with. Half of him wanted to declare as such—but then, that would be a very ill-timed thing to say, wouldn’t it? Especially with her looking at him with those ice-cold eyes.

“However.” And then, suddenly jarring him from his indignation, she was opening the box, swiftly and cleanly extricating a small bundle from inside. “I would be remiss if I did not inform you also of his generosity and good will towards his friends, something which I can…personally attest to.”

Then before he could react she was firmly shoving the bundle into Dorian’s hands, something not heavy but composed of several individual parts. Frowning, he pulled the drawstring holding it closed to see bottles and bars of soaps, a safely wrapped razor, and various other implements that were too buried to make out properly with just a glance. He stared at it all for a moment, uncomprehending. “What--?”

“If the Inquisitor insists on granting you more freedom than is your due, it certainly wouldn’t bode well for you to be seen by our potential allies in your current state. Can’t have them thinking we treat ‘honored’ prisoners like dogs. Surely you had a grooming regimen in Tevinter. I would suggest returning to it. He told me you mentioned favoring lilac soap?”

Her voice was sharp, not a single glimmer of kindness revealed in her tone, and yet this was the first present he’d actually received from another person in perhaps two whole years. “I…”

“A bath has been set aside for your use, to expedite this process.” She clapped once, and one of the soldiers stepped forward, looking nervously between the two of them. “Be a dear and escort Lord Dorian here, make sure he doesn’t get lost.”

As the gangly recruit led him along, Dorian stared at the package in his hands. Some items were things he’d mentioned to Trevelyan, like the lilac soap. Some were things that Vivienne must have come up with on her own. It was Orlesian, but it could have been worse. Could have been Antivan.

There were guards flanking the door to the bath, and his escort waved for them to move to let him inside. Small mercies, no one followed him in. He was allowed that privacy.

Maybe he should be insulted.

They’d given him a razor. He could put it to his wrists, work some blood magic. It was possible that the band on his arm wouldn’t stop it—from what he had come to understand, it had to do with blocking Fade casting, not all magic.

Even if it _did_ block the magic, the blade was still a weapon in his hands. Did they expect him to do nothing? Or was this another test? Wait for him to make a move and then pounce on him for it?

Dorian sighed. He really wanted a hot bath, though.

The room was simple—nothing overtly ornate, with a plain mirror off to the side, a washbasin, some towels and a basket. The bath was fairly large though, and inset into the floor rather than in an upraised tub. It reminded him slightly of the Tevinter style, something intended to be heated up with magic rather than with a boiling pot or pipework, though outside of that particular regard it did not look Tevinter at all.

Drawing in his breath in grim preparation, he first stalked over to the mirror to inspect what the damage was.

A surprising amount of strength left him when his reflection came into view.

It wasn’t that he was expecting himself to look like the polished noble son that he’d been when they first dragged him into custody. Obviously one couldn’t bathe properly when you weren’t even allowed access to hot water, or magic to heat cold water with. And even before, during his time with the Venatori, he’d spent more time than he’d ever care to remember camping out in harsh wilderness with nothing but some basic supplies. It was just…

Everything about him looked _wrong_. His eyes looked washed out, his face looked gaunt and pale, his mustache and beard patch had branched out into full grown _stubble_ all over his jaw and chin, and there was dirt on his skin. His hair was long—not exceptionally so but enough that it bothered him immensely, hanging in thin strands around his face.

Maker, he really did look bedraggled. How fortunate there hadn’t been any mirrors in his vicinity all this time or he might have offed himself before getting to this point.

It was possible that few of his captors had really noticed because up to this point very few of those in direct contact with him took that much care of their own hygiene—Rainier in particular sprung to mind—but to him it was painfully obvious that his time as prisoner was not doing any wonders for his appearance. How he could have let himself go this far without objecting was beyond him; he was merely intensely grateful that they had an Orlesian to point them in the right direction.

The water was still scalding when he shed his robes, but instead of just jumping inside he grabbed a cloth and dampened it, scrubbing his body with the soap that Vivienne had given him. The cleaner he got the more eager he was to finish, and by the end he was using so much pressure that his skin felt raw. There was another set of soap set aside for his hair, this one lilac scented, and he worked it through his scalp with a bit of relief loosening the knot in his chest. By the time he was all done, dipping a bowl in the bath to rinse his curling locks, the water had cooled to just shy of scalding.

Which was how he liked it, really.

He slipped in, naked save for the band still on his arm, and just soaked for a little while. And the greatest pleasure in that was not the heat, soothing fatigued muscles and protecting him from Skyhold’s omnipresent bitter chill, but rather having the opportunity to just turn his mind off for a time.

Once he’d finally regained the presence of mind to climb out again, it was time for the razor. First order of business was the facial hair. His mustache would require more work—they didn’t have the wax he liked to use to clean up the tips, but he could at least cut it back into its proper shape, make him look less uncouth. The blade scraped a little over his jaw, but it was not the sharpest thing he’d ever had against his throat, and despite the nicking that dribbled just a touch of blood over his skin he laughed.

After the hair on his face came that on the top of his head. That was a simpler matter, perhaps. It just needed a trim. And cutting his own hair was something that he already had plenty of experience in, albeit with a second mirror on hand, usually. He’d have to make do with this one.

It was hard to tell if he was successful or not, wet hair curling oddly against his scalp as it was sliced free. Soon enough though the bangs were set, and then he set about with the sides. There, he paused. The symbols, arcane nonsense that the Venatori dressed themselves in to appear important, were still carved into his hair. Albeit, its length made them harder to recognize. Should he just touch them up?

Hm. No. He cut them all off. There was no vanity to be had in dead languages not even Corypheus used. Only living magic mattered. He wasn’t sure what had been going through his head when he got that particular cut anyway.

Finally, after a great deal of touching up and repeatedly re-washing his scalp, he could look at his face in the mirror and proclaim that he was satisfied with how it looked.

Just his face. Not that the rest of his body wasn’t surprisingly in good shape considering his time in captivity, but there were too many healing scars not to wince when he looked at it.

There was a new outfit available to him when he was finally ready to get dressed again, pressed into the bottom of the bag that had been given him. It was the only thing that soured the experience—the same hideous garments that all of the “Inquisition sanctioned” mages wore, albeit with some minor adjustments. Admittedly, it was cleaner than the robes he’d been wearing since his capture. But that was the only improvement that could be said for it. Briefly he even considered taking the scissors and razor and just chopping away at anything on it he found distasteful—but then, they would probably take some offense to him spitting on their goodwill like that.

After a moment of consideration, he did it anyway.

When he was dressed, he heard the door open and soft footsteps against the tile.

Irritation was his first feeling, whirling around and expecting to yell back the unfortunate soldier who’d evidently run out of patience waiting for him to finish making himself a presentable human being again. But that didn’t last long, because the soldier who had led him to this bath was lying in a little puddle of blood on the floor, and in his place was a Venatori Stalker, pausing in the doorway when spotted.

They looked at each other.

“Pavus.”

It was alarmingly difficult to breathe. The thought of rescue had occurred to him, of course. Especially in the early days, when all he had to look forward to each day was brick walls and the occasional book. And as time went on it became a sort of fuzzy dream, a promise that eventually he’d leave. _I’ll put up with it for now until I get out of here_ , that had been a sort of creed. Only, the “until I get out of here” part was something he was growing comfortable with never arriving.

But it had to, didn’t it? This was a good thing.

It didn’t feel like one, that was all.

When he didn’t reply, their eyes lowered into a gleaming, steel hardness that he’d once been used to, that he now hated the sight of. Dorian tensed up, stood still for a moment as the Venatori approached him—

\--And then smacked them upside the head with the half-empty shampoo bottle. The glass shattered on impact, tragically wasting the rest of it and leaving the infiltrator soaked and bloody as they fell like a sack of potatoes.

He stood over the clumsy idiot as several guards and Commander Cullen raced to the room to investigate the disturbance, glancing up with a hint of trepidation. “It’s not how it—well, I have no bloody idea how it looks, but I didn’t call him here.”

He could tell immediately that they didn’t believe him, though Cullen at least focused first on what they could prove. “Have every guard on alert. We’ve clearly had a security breach—we must know how they got into Skyhold.” At that, his gaze turned on Dorian. “Leliana will want to talk with you.”

“ _Talk_ with me?” He walked forward, hands on his hips. “I know what that means. –You think I planned this? I let a spy sneak in and then, what? Cracked him over the head for laughs? Don’t be stupid. It’s not a charming look for you.”

“What other possibility is there? The only thing that’s changed lately is _you_ , letting you have access to other areas of Skyhold. If it _wasn’t_ you—”

“It _wasn’t._ ”

They continued to argue, Dorian only half listening to the words that came out of his mouth because he knew they weren’t making a difference anyway. The guards who hadn’t run to alert the others of what had happened watched the verbal sparring, a few stepping in line behind Cullen and some looking as though they disagreed but were too nervous to say so.

Unfortunately for all present, but most particularly Dorian, they failed to take one very serious consideration into account.

That this person had not been acting alone.

Cloaking oneself with magic wasn’t especially hard if you had a mind for it. Particularly for the kind of blood mages that the Venatori went nuts for, the kind who specialized in changing the way people perceived things, thought about things, believed things. The only hint that Dorian had as to what was coming was breath on the back of his neck, and then that odd sensation was quickly eclipsed by the pain of a dagger parting his flesh.

Right there, just between his shoulders.

As the blade sunk into his back he heard a dark voice harshly whisper in his ear, “Mortis perfida.”

Then he was falling and soldiers were shouting around him. Strangely enough the knife wound didn’t hurt—nothing hurt. He couldn’t sit up, couldn’t speak, the world around him was growing a little fuzzy and faded and far away, but nothing hurt.

It occurred to him, faintly, that this was a fairly bad reaction for just one stab wound. Perhaps it was poisoned.

Yes, perhaps it was poisoned.

Black began to leech into his vision as he was being picked up, sound dropping to a muffled whine.

He thought to himself, well. If he was going to die, at least it was after he’d had a chance to clean himself up.

Did they cremate their dead down here?

Well, there would have to be a funeral, at any rate.

Freshly shaved and cleaned like this, it would be positively criminal not to.

Someone would have to mourn him.

Someone he hadn’t hurt, or driven away, or lost.

Funny. He couldn’t think of anyone.

But then, he couldn’t think of anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, I don’t know Latin. I don’t know Tevene, either. Tevene is, from the sound of things, a dead language by the time of the dragon age anyway, so I don’t think anyone in the Venatori actually speak it outside of Corypheus. I just imagine it’s something that some of them might attempt (and butcher) in an effort to put on airs among their own rank. Anyway, point is the thing that they said was a butchering of the phrase “mortem ad perfidus” (which may be incorrect Latin—again, I don’t know it), which means “death to the traitor”.
> 
> This chapter is, I think, a little short with not much to it, but that is perhaps to counter the fact that the next chapter is enormous and lots of stuff happens in it. It’s not complete yet, so it may take longer than a week to get that one out. If that does end up being the case, I thank you guys for your patience!


	10. Imposter (Syndrome)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is utterly, ridiculously long and I am so sorry that it rambles on forever like the Fade segments do in the actual Dragon Age games. 
> 
> On the plus side, it ended up taking me exactly a week to get done rather than longer like I thought.

He didn’t feel fear the way that other people did.

It was there, of course. But never in a way that he could recognize. Not a friendly warning sign, but a sock to the gut come far too late to correct himself.

Inquisitor Trevelyan was falling through air that warped and shifted around him like moving quickly through water. Though he gasped in preparation for a scream, he was too worked up to make an actual sound. Before he knew it he was falling up, slowing, approaching a jagged ceiling of rock that seemed to pull back a little in anticipation of him.

And all the tension inside him burst into giddy wonderment instead. He reached out a hand and lightly touched the rock ceiling as he came to a stop, dangling there mid-air. It didn’t feel solid in the least. A single, short laugh escaped him.

Then gravity shifted and he slammed into the ground.

It felt solid then.

He entertained the notion of just laying there on the ground until the world started to feel real again, until he knew where he was, but at each passing second he came to realize that would never happen as long as he stayed there. Up to his feet he went.

His memory of events leading up to this strange new location were fuzzy and composed of a series of stills rather than complete perceptions, starting from a hole splitting open in reality to reveal far too many eyes, all of which turned to look directly at him under the clicking of mandibles and legs skittering. He remembered Blackwall talking down the Wardens with words that should have been said ages ago. He remembered barreling through lines of demons with Iron Bull at his front and Solas on his heels, Adamant falling to pieces under fire and massive, raking claws. He remembered chasing Clarel, feeling intense anger at her for making decisions under fear, for having fear at all for a choice that she must have made long ago, for being a human being instead of a symbol.

He remembered seeing Dorian Pavus arguing with Erimond as the dragon snatched Clarel away in its jaws. “—since your _screwup_ at the Western Approach, Livius—” he had been saying. And he was so busy with them, giving greetings with Varric and Sera in the form of flying arrows and bolts, that he didn’t see that the dragon was back until splashes of blood were swirling in the air as Clarel made her last spell.

Something, something, _sacrifice_.

The void had called to him as he fell.

There he stood in the Void.

 

_The Void was his own mind._

_He knew it instantly, a cluttered and dark place devoid of life or artistry save for confining architecture and fires._

_He knew it by the hollowness of his voice coming back to him as he called out for anyone to hear him._

_By the frozen, agonized poising of burning corpses that he would see behind his eyelids whenever he fell asleep at night._

_Knew it by the blade drawing across a fragile human throat._

_'You can’t hurt me,’ he’d thought to himself as he watched the demon prance around in Josephine’s skin like a cheap costume. ‘I know what you are, and I know what I am. As long as I know, you can’t hurt me.’_

_But it was a very unwise thing to think, because the world and everything in it was always determined to make him feel like a fool._

_“Tell me what you **feel**.”_

_And he’d laughed and said that the answer was ‘nothing’._

The sky was green and dark, the ground black with an oily sheen of rainbow colors as the light hit it. He was alone, as far as he could see. Which was not very far at all, in fact—the world around him flickered with its opaque black stone, veins of lyrium curling around sharp hills like streaks of lightning. It took a moment to adjust to how sound seemed to function, physical noises like the clunk of his boots on rock loud and echoing off of nothing, and his own voice as he spoke echoing only in his mind. It was disgustingly familiar. His brow crinkled.

“Hello?”

Isolation didn’t bother him. Even in a place as upside-down and alien as this one, the thought of being to himself was almost a boon, license to do as he wished without eyes upon him, even if that was just to stare dreamily at the little sparkling eddies of magic that pooled in the air around him. What bothered him was that he _hadn’t_ been alone when he started falling.

But they had all fallen together. It didn’t take him long to start finding them.

The first was a short, elven figure lying sideways on another one of the hills, a bow strapped to her back. He jogged forward, feeling his heart do another painful flipflop as he tried to make her out in the shimmering light.

It wasn’t Sera.

“Warden Mahariel,” he greeted a little stiffly, slowing as he approached. She was hastily tying her washed-out brown hair back into a ponytail, some strands falling free to curl around her face. Her eyes were curious and wide, and while he would have liked to say he felt the same he was too busy wondering if he was going back to Skyhold sans a few companions.

That is, if he made it back to Skyhold at all.

“Inquisitor,” she returned, smiling a little at him and pushing herself off the rock so that they were both standing on the same ground. “Good to see you’re in one piece. Would be a shame to have to solve the world’s problems with just your disembodied arm on a stick.”

His head twitched to the side and he felt a little bit better about his own lack of panic. “You don’t seem all that worried, considering we seem to be trapped in a nightmare. Have you seen the others?”

“Nightmare, no. Others, no. Fade, yes.” She paused, brow crinkling and voice going absent as she looked around. “…At least, I think this is the Fade. I’ve been here before, but…it didn’t quite look like this. It had disguises on it like a forest or a nice home with a warm fire. But then, I was being courted by a Sloth demon at the time, so…”

“The _Fade?_ ” It made sense, and a part of his brain slotted the explanation in without hesitation. Another part rebelled. “But I’m not a mage. I can’t _be_ here. Come to think of it, you shouldn’t be either.”

“No, but I was not physically here last time. Technically, I was dreaming. Have you never visited the Fade in sleep?”

He remembered his conversation with Solas, briefly. “We are not dreaming now.”

“No.”

He had poured over everything on the Fade that Solas and Vivienne had pointed out to him, every text and pamphlet they could get their hands on. “This could be extremely dangerous.”

“Yes.” Mahariel smiled. There was a hardness in it. “This is quite normal. Are you scared? I am a little scared. But we will not die here, I am sure of it.”

“The others,” he said, drawing his bow as she did, just to have it at the ready. “They must be around here somewhere. _I_ may be impervious to everything that the world has chucked at me so far, but they might not be.”

“Excellent point.” She grandly gestured for him to lead, and he felt that perhaps neither of them were being straightforward, and that one of them should be. He swallowed and stood taller as she spoke. “We won’t find them standing around.”

_Warden Commander Mahariel, hero of Fereldan._

She was smaller than he’d thought she would be. Slender, and yet muscles strong and tightly wound. What she lacked in pure brute strength she made up for in speed, in pure, precise movements unlike Sera’s madcap style, unlike Varric’s steady fire and tricks, unlike his own sneaking and force. She did not need to hide—she could stand in an open field and dodge almost everything that her enemies had to throw at her, and that was not something he needed to imagine because he had seen it.

She made him nervous, but in a most pleasant way. He liked it when people were interesting, and clever. He’d monopolized so much of her time when she’d visited Skyhold.

“What do you think about these wardens falling so easily to their fears, commander?” he had teased, poking her for a reaction.

“Well,” she’d said, ears wiggling a little, “They are Orlesian, yes?”

“None of the Fereldan wardens are feeling the Calling?”

“The Fereldan wardens have their assignments. I have mine. They trust their commander to investigate into this issue while they continue the mission I have outlined for them. If they do well, even if this Calling is real, it won’t be an issue for much longer. …But feeling the Calling now didn’t make sense to me anyway. I’ve only been a warden ten years. The others less so.”

Mahariel was at once exactly the idealized noble-hearted picture of Grey Wardens that Trevelyan had started to develop in his mind spending time with Blackwall, and also a complete subversion of it.

It wasn’t that she was “elfy”, as Sera called it, vallaslin on her face sometimes hard to see under dirt and blood from constant combat and sharp accent as she spoke that reminded him a little of a clan he’d met in Emprise du Lion. It wasn’t that she was irreverent and bright, speaking circles around the Chanters in Skyhold’s garden and speaking of Darkspawn with a sing-song lilt. It wasn’t that she smiled more often in the span of ten minutes than he’d seen Blackwall smile in a week, wasn’t her giving Trevelyan tips on picking locks and pickpocketing as they traveled through the Approach, wasn’t that she bowed before noble, spirit, and criminal alike as though all were equally deserving of at least pleasant conversation.

There was a fire inside her. He could see it when she fought, the gleam in her eyes when exchanging commentary. Not some great pyre of hope, no. Not the warm glow of a hearth. It was a wild, angry thing. A need to destroy and consume, and for the benefit of all the world that need was primarily directed at Darkspawn and his own targets, stupid assholes who thought they could improve the world by breaking it.

It seemed at odds with her philosophy.

“So what drives you?” he had asked. “You could leave the wardens if you wanted to. You had that opportunity. Why pick this life?”

She’d looked at him for a while, red-brown eyes appraising, before she said, “You’ve been to Fereldan.”

 “Yes?”

“Have you been to the Korcari Wilds?” When he shook his head, she continued, “It was a dangerous place. Part bog, part monster-infested woods. The veil was thin and people were always going missing inside it, hunted by demons and animals, and witches. It’s mostly empty, now. The Blight started in the Wilds, and now ten years later almost half of it is nothing but dirt.

“Not all in the Wilds are monsters. Flowers grow as well as toads. …A dear friend taught me that.”

She didn’t have to tell him that the dear friend was Morrigan. He had seen the way she’d pounced on her in a hug the second their eyes met, to Morrigan’s consternation. He knew from Leliana’s reports where she’d come from. If Morrigan herself grieved for the destruction of her home, she said nothing of it.

Mahariel continued, frowning a little as though talking to herself as well as him. “The Dalish try to protect the culture and way of life that is theirs, keep it safe from a world constantly beating against them to tear it apart. I used to be one of them. Now, I am a Warden, and in much the same way, I protect the flowers and toads alike from the Blight.”

Just to be contrarian, he objected. “But not all the world’s problems stem from Blight.”

She had smiled. “It is a good thing then that there are people like you out there, looking to solve the rest of them.”

Well. Trevelyan did like flowers. And toads, for that matter. Even if he still didn’t really get it.

 

_It was just memory at first._

_Memories as they had seemed, not as they had been, and that had been the first cut that stung. Because these were experiences that should have had perfect objectivity to them, but they were the muddled and cracked things where he felt swords pointed at his back and his own voice shaking as he demanded to be believed by a woman whose anger had swallowed her whole._

_He’d hated Cassandra so strongly back then. Thoughts of her had only become more painful after her apology, after her defense, having to hold the hate close to him so he could untangle it and find a woman he could trust in there somewhere, rather than just pushing her away entirely like the others._

_Somehow in this venture, ever since Val Royeaux he had managed to convince himself that he was serving a role, getting something done because he wanted to. But there he had once sat in chains._

_The throwaway son, Alexiel Trevelyan. Heir to nothing, arms heavy from their bonds, a world full of strangers who despised and feared him for things he didn’t understand nor believe in._

_"You’re lying!”_

_The vision of him tensed, a dark and clouded thing that barely resembled him_

_“ **I am not!”**_

_It didn’t sound like him when he spoke, but somehow his throat felt raw from listening._

 

Varric was reading a piece of parchment when they found him. It was clutched in the hand of a twisted and burned out husk, like the ones at Haven, the kind that Trevelyan still saw right before he fell asleep. Instead of immediately greeting the dwarf, he stared at the husk.

Eventually Varric spoke first. “Why does weird shit always happen to you? Why do I follow you anywhere when I know weird shit is going to happen to me?”

“It’s not just the Inquisitor,” Mahariel remarked sagely. “Weird shit happens to me all the time.”

“Hawke too, now that I think about it. I mean—well, you’ve read _Tale of the Champion_.”

“Having all three of us here together must be some sort of triple threat,” Trevelyan remarked blithely, finally tearing his eyes away.

Varric laughed, though the way he continued to hold Bianca in his hands instead of strapping her to his back made the cheer seem hollow. There was crusted blood along his brow, and the sleeve of his jacket was torn. Otherwise, he seemed physically alright. “Yeah. Add together three magnets for all the craziest shit imaginable and you get _this_ place. Figures.”

“I’d like to make chitchat, but we still have people missing.” Mahariel smiled at Varric, though the stoniness in her eyes didn’t fade. “Let’s haste before the demons get hungry.”

Trevelyan shot her a small glare, but Varric simply grew more alert. “Have you found Hawke? She fell through with us, I’m sure of it.”

“Not yet.” Trevelyan rankled a little at the concern in his voice for her, felt as though he was being judged. They hadn’t been here long, hadn’t had time to look. “I’m sure she’s nearby.”

“I’ll go look. You guys came from that direction there, right? Then maybe she’s this way.”

He moved immediately to block Varric’s steps, which wasn’t hard given his legs were so much shorter. “We only just found you, Varric. The plan when we’re in _dangerous spirit land_ is to stay in one group, not break off again.”

Perhaps it spoke to his determination. Varric was obviously scared--at least, obvious to someone who knew him. But he pressed on anyway. “No, no—this place is _enormous._ And she’s an adventurous lady, I’m positive she’s already wandered off. We can’t cover that kind of ground if we stick together. Besides which, there are still the others.”

“It’s still not safe to be alone.” Mahariel added, jogging a little to keep up. “It’s not just your typical demons, remember—the big one that Erimond was summoning should be here somewhere.”

“ _Hawke_ is alone,” Varric shot back.

Trevelyan did not point out that from what he had seen of Hawke, she was far more capable of handling herself alone around demons—indeed, as a mage she was particularly suited to that--than Varric, nor that between the two of them, Varric was more important to him. Instead, he thought about what it had been like when Hawke had first arrived at Skyhold. How Varric had looked like he was breathing again for the first time in months, like watching him become his whole self. He thought of how earth shattering it had been to realize how tense and unhappy he’d been because suddenly he wasn’t.

Varric needed Hawke.

“Then Mahariel will go with you to help search.”

That seemed to give him pause, at least. “You don’t have to—”

“I _want to_.” His words seemed to spring through the air, bouncing off glowing protrusions of rock and twisting into small, high pitched noises. Softer, noting concern in their eyes, he added, “I’m sneaky, it’ll be fine.”

When Mahariel lifted a brow at him he waved her off.

“Go on, go with him. I’ll look for the others as well. We’ll meet up at the rift.”

The relieved smile that crossed Varric’s face was almost enough compensation for the tangled knot that settled in the Inquisitor’s stomach as he let him go.

_Hawke, Champion of Kirkwall._

Hawke was an unusual person to be introduced to, in that he had already met her, so to speak. _The Tale of the Champion_ had been his favorite reading material for a month after it reached Ostwick, none the least because it scandalized his siblings to see him reading it.

The picture that Varric had painted of her was vibrant and powerful, yet elegant and sleek, like a sharp blade that sliced through foes, polished and gilded with decoration pleasing to the eye. The real deal was blunted and worn, but so much less hollow that Trevelyan didn’t care. He was, however, flustered to be meeting a woman he had fantasized about, someone who looked at him with keen appraisal and took him seriously when he joked. It was around then perhaps that he had first started putting his “Inquisitor mask” to use, to stifle a crush and keep from embarrassing himself.

He compared her to the image in his head the entire time they talked. She was older than he had thought. Of course she would be—the story of her arrival in Kirkwall had been about a decade ago. But in the book she’d been some sort of eternally youthful, rosy cheeked girl, the picture of silk hiding steel. In the real world her silk was frayed, and steel on full display. Her rosy cheeks were merely sunburned.

She was better in person, he had ultimately decided.

“Without darkness, there can be no light.”

That was something she’d said in the book.

It was the cheesiest line in the world, and he didn’t quite understand it, not really, but he couldn’t get it out of his head. So it struck him even more strongly when she said to him as they were talking on the battlements, in real life, “I look at the good things in my life against a backdrop of bad, and that makes them worth more to me. It makes them worth protecting.”

“Does crushing your enemies count as being one of the good things in life?” he’d said without thinking, eyes on the sun as it slowly settled beneath the mountains.

When he had glanced over, Hawke didn’t frown. She smirked, like there was something she was in-on that he wasn’t. “Do you feel sad when you go a few days without putting an arrow through someone’s skull?”

 “I’m not sure I…understand the question.”

“Then you probably wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. Don’t worry. You’re young, but you’ll learn.”

He wouldn’t call it fear, but he saw the look in her eyes and a part of him didn’t want to.       

_“Is imitating what you **can’t have** your only pleasure, demon?” he’d said, brow just a little narrowed. It was farcical, this thing that barely resembled him, this creature cackling about ambition. It would not be about him. He wouldn’t let it be._

_“Accusing. Trying to find my weakness. Is that the kind of man you are?”_

_All at once the jerking puppet straightened. All at once a kind of directness took over its tone. He watched as it spoke down to an underling, targeted and merciless._

_He hadn’t meant to give anything away._

_It wasn’t supposed to be about him._

 

Spiders.

Spiders, spiders, spiders.

Sera and Iron Bull he found by their screaming and generally freaking out as they were onset by spiders, and it was very difficult to deny that Trevelyan suddenly and clearly understood exactly where they stood as he joined the fray.

He didn’t like spiders.

Sera and Bull didn’t like demons.

They were demon spiders.

Between the three of them it was relatively easy to kill—or at least, vanquish, perhaps—whatever it was exactly that was attacking them, and then Trevelyan was able to give a gasping, abbreviated version of events to the two of them.

When she had regained at least most of her composure, Sera punched him. “Now he’s going to get eaten!”

Trevelyan grabbed his arm, flinching back. “He’s not going to get eaten!”

“The Boss is right, Sera. He’s not gonna get eaten,” Bull chimed in. Some of the tension in him relaxed, just a tad. If nothing else, he could rely on Bull to have some composure in a tough situati-- “He’s just gonna get _his brain taken over by some demon shit.”_

His black leather gloves smeared some purple blood on his forehead as he pinched the bridge of his nose. Their fear grated on him like rough sandpaper, voices intermingling as they began to argue over which was worse, Sera’s voice shaking and Bull’s rumbling timbre hitching in uncontrolled expression. He wanted to be patient, he really did.

“SHUT UP! _Both of you!_ ” They turned back to him, their eyes wild. Trevelyan took a breath, sweeping his hair back and putting his hands on his hips. In a calmer voice, he continued. “No one is going to be eating anything. We are all going to get out of here alive with our brains intact. And if anything tries to get in the way of that, we do what we always do and **_kill the shit out of it._** ”

It wasn’t his best inspirational speech, granted, but Sera and Bull seemed to like it just fine, and that was more than enough for him.

 

_Envy. Of all things to identify him, to pull him aside, it was envy._

_“What makes you, you?”_

_What made him, him?_

_It wasn’t his memories. For the demon could sort through his memories and take them for its own. He knew that by how it tugged his family forward, four siblings that made his life miserable jeering at his work, and one that could appear to him only as a distant, faded shadow of a little girl._

_It wasn’t his skills. For the demon could learn any trick that he demonstrated so long as it was able to observe. He had fired an arrow, hoping to kill the puppet that was starting to look too familiar for comfort, and the puppet fired back a perfect mirror of the action._

_It wasn’t his name. For the demon didn’t even need it. He never used his name if he could help it, always sticking to nicknames and titles. Herald of Andraste. Head of the Inquisition. Some things he’d never had, but would have gladly latched onto._

_It wasn’t his morals. For he had striven his best to eliminate any that he could recognize. When the demon killed, accused, destroyed, he couldn’t say he would never do that. Because sometimes he wanted to. Sometimes he did._

_It wasn’t his deeds. For ever he had held to shadow and silence until now, only thrust into a position of fixed figurehead with all his decisions made for him. There was a blank spot that was his history before the Conclave, and there was nothing to chafe against if he were to start changing now._

_It wasn’t his courtesy. For all politeness in him was skin-deep, all niceties a ploy to leave an unrippled and opaque pond over what lay inside. The demon could pretend however it liked the same way, put on the same cheerfulness, the same kindness, and then stab in the back. Just as he could._

_It wasn’t his face. For the demon could make one so close to his that it was like looking in a mirror._

_What did that leave?_

_Was there anything in him that was his?_

 

Rather than them finding Solas, Solas found them. Rock smashed through a particularly large Pride demon that had chosen to try to pick them off as they quarreled over which direction to go in ( _the giant glowing hole in the sky, of course)_ , and then suddenly there he was, eyes the same deep set seriousness as was always there but with a tug on his cheeks that suggested he was enjoying himself.

Good! At least someone else was.

“I have never seen a place in the Fade like this,” he informed them, casting a minor rejuvenation spell to keep up their flagging spirits as the injuries from Adamant started to become less numb. “Though I think with what I have seen so far I can guess as to which spirit rules this place.”

“Demon! You mean _deee-mon!_ ” Sera rebuked, moving some of her hair out of her eyes. “Look at you! This isn’t a friggin’ stroll! We have— _things_ looking for us!”

Solas turned his gaze on her, patronizing but unintentionally so, which Trevelyan always found amusing. “Perhaps you should look at it like one. Negative emotions are what attract demons most strongly, after all.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Iron Bull said as he watched the Pride demon’s body simply disappear, face locked in a grimace. “You’d live in here if you could. Unlike us _normal_ people.”

“Yes, Solas spends practically half his life here, excellent point Bull. Bull, who by the way is twice as large as anyone here and has two big horns on his head.” Trevelyan knocked him with his elbow, only comfortable doing so because it was like hitting a wall. “Solas is the expert, then. So, we keep positive.”

“Easy for you to say, giggles,” Sera grumbled morosely

“Why are you trying to ruin our fun little excursion, Sera?” When that didn’t receive anything but an angry glare, he sighed and clapped his hands, dropping his smile. Maybe it looked a little too manic anyway. “Varric and Mahariel are out searching for Hawke. We’re to rendezvous at the rift—it makes no sense to head in any other direction.”

Back to the argument they’d been starting with.

“It makes no sense to head _away_ from the bleedin’—?"

“ _NO.”_

Solas put a hand on his arm and he jolted from his frustration, shaking his head to clear the emotion away.

He was in charge. Demon or not, there was only one way out, and Varric was there, so off they went. He had thought that would leave everyone accounted for.

But the Fade had at least one more party member to throw at them, and it wasn’t long before yet another voice came shivering at him through the aether. A man, talking to someone or something that gave no sound of its own. Trevelyan jogged to follow it, scattered words descending into cries of rage and effort as whoever he was addressing started to attack. He turned a corner and saw, to his diminishing surprise, _Dorian_ fending off something that—something—

What the hell was that?

Well, whatever it was, it didn’t last long. It was so focused on knocking Dorian’s staff away that it didn’t seem to notice being set on fire, until suddenly there wasn’t even ashes left of it. It was just gone. Branching limbs and all.

“You!” he cried, taking notice while Trevelyan stood there in a kind of fascinated stupor, heavy footsteps clanging after him. He was twisted in anger, but there was fear in his eyes too. “This is your doing!”

There was barely even enough presence of mind for him to say, “Mine?” Then Iron Bull was charging, not taking any chances, moving in for a powerful sweep that if it connected would probably cut Dorian into two perfectly groomed pieces.

But his reflexes were just a bit quicker than that. "--Get _back_ , Qunari scum!"

With a strong sweep of Dorian's arm, a wall of flickering, silent green fire rose up between the two of them. Iron Bull stumbled, skidded against the ground trying to cancel out his momentum, and then retreated, fists clenched knuckle-white over the handle of his axe.

"There's a good ox." Despite the clear lack of breath, he seemed more at ease once he'd retrieved his staff, looking past Bull to the Inquisitor as he spoke. “Is that any way to say hello to someone?”

“Someone you want to kill,” Trevelyan said, lying because he actually rather liked Dorian and would maybe have been upset with Bull for a couple days if he’d actually succeeded.

With significantly lighter footsteps, Sera and Solas pulled around to catch up with them.

“Perhaps you could refrain from senseless violence for just a few minutes more,” Dorian said, glancing warily between all of them. He might have been exceptionally talented, but there was four of them, one of whom was a mage himself. The odds were clearly pressing on him.

Trevelyan grinned brightly. “You mean you’re asking us to be civil for a minute?”

He liked the way Dorian’s almost angry smirk upticked one side of his moustache, liked the suggestion that he remembered their conversations as acutely as he himself did. "I have just as little desire to die here as you do. The way I see it, winning against you—as I am confident I would--won’t do me much good if I can’t get out of this Blighted place afterwards. Especially considering the mark on your hand is what opened the portal here in the first place."

“Was it?” He glanced down at his hand. Now that he mentioned it, there had been that moment as they fell, that flash of burning fire in the nerves in his palm, and it was then that the Fade opened to them. But it hadn’t been a conscious effort, not like closing or opening rifts was. Ah, but…that hadn’t been conscious at first either.

His silence must have betrayed his lack of understanding, because Dorian laughed, a little maniacally. “You don’t even know how that _works_ , do you? You didn’t even do it on _purpose_.”

“I know how to get us out, if that’s what you mean. And _you_ are not required for any part of that process.”

“I may not be _required_ ,” Dorian countered, voice taking on a rather lovely indignance as he spoke, the knit of his brows ever so fascinating to watch, “But I can make this considerably easier. I have been working with Erimond on this. I know what he was summoning. Fight me, and you delay precious time before the rift closes, and weaken yourself for going against the massive Fear demon he has stationed there. Something to be avoided, yes?”

For the sake of the other people present, Trevelyan made a show of thinking about it. It wasn’t just a matter of personal preference—Dorian was absolutely correct. Even with all the combat-ready people he had here in the Fade, they were out of their element and tired from Adamant. They needed all the help they could get.

As he deliberated, he could see Dorian’s expression become wracked with anticipation, until he finally snapped and said, attempting and failing a casual tone, "What do you say? Truce? At least, until we get out of here. Then we can commence with the killing each other and such."

Alright, then. “Fine.”

“Fine?” And then he looked startled, like he hadn’t expected his proposal to be accepted so readily. He recovered quickly enough, but again—Trevelyan was always paying attention. “Excellent. Knew you would see reason.”

Naturally, there were some protests behind him. It was hard to tell who was saying what exactly, as they were talking at the same time and shut up the moment he turned around to glare at them.

“The Inquisitor’s decision is sound.” Solas stepped forward, expression grave though tempered somewhat by his remaining academic fascination. “A fight will only attract the attention of demons. It would be better to work together and remain as calm as possible while doing so.”

As the rest of the group scowled in acceptance, Dorian looked pleasantly surprised. After a moment of hesitation he swept his arm again and the wall of fire dissipated. “Good to know _some_ of you have brains in your heads.”

“If you try any Venatori blood shit, it’s arrows,” Sera warned, a bit of a tremble in her finger when she wagged it at him.

Trevelyan chimed in, grinning broadly. “Loads of arrows! Arrows from everywhere! Sera arrows, my arrows, and probably later Dalish Warden arrows and those bolt-things that Varric--”

“Yes, I quite get the point,” Dorian snapped, folding his arms. And then, begrudgingly, he removed one of his hands from the cross to shake.

It was firm, still laced with that warm crackle of energy.

 

_He wanted to cry. He wanted to wail and beat the walls that held him. He was powerless and angry and the demon was being him and **doing it wrong.**_

_There was nothing to gain in chaos. He had told that to Vivienne, once, remembered his small gratification that she agreed. There was nothing to gain in senseless witch hunts. ‘Don’t you see, you idiot, I wouldn’t **do** that’._

_And he denied so fervently partly because he could see himself doing it. Because he was seeing himself doing it. And everyone else would see him making those commands, and crushing all under his boot, and there would be no reason for anyone in the world to doubt._

_The murmurs of fear in these fake little people, these images of what he could be, they didn’t bother him. Fear was appropriate—he was a scary person, and as life continued to throw surprises at him he grew scarier by the day. But there were other things too. Mutters of resentment—“I knew this would happen”, “Idiot boy doesn’t even understand what he’s doing”, “Upstart brat with no head for power”,  things that grew and followed him as they dug into his mind._

_And then he really did want to shut them up. He took a knife to one of the illusions, watched them fall, and then turned around and saw his new double doing the same thing._

_It was him, and that was all he was, and there wasn’t a practical difference he could expound on to protect himself._

_He would see someone steal his life and they would get away with it because there was so little they needed to actually take._

 

“You know…this is quite fascinating, truth be told. A monumental event.”

The one to break the silence as they traveled was Dorian. Eyes misty, a little tinged with fear but ultimately filled with more awe than anything else. It was a surprisingly earnest expression, delightfully innocent on his face.

Trevelyan shook his head lightly to jar his own thoughts. He said, a little snide, wanting to poke at whatever elation he was experiencing, “What? Us being in the Fade? I thought you were on the team that had already managed that before.”

“Yes, Corypheus and he alone out of anyone still alive managed this _aeons_ ago,” Dorian snorted, giving him a quick glance. “Do you know how fervently he has been trying to duplicate his feat? And yet here you are, here we _all_ are, strolling around like this is the gardens in Halamshiral when we’re in the _Fade_. It’s almost like—like being _equal_ to his power.”

“Equal?” Sera snorted, sneering with teeth clenched. “Chant says Coryphenus went and got himself turned into a friggin’ Darkspawn. Don’t see that happening to any of us.”

Dorian smirked, though the expression came on more like a nervous twitch, and left almost as suddenly. “It still could. The Black City is right over there.”

The blood drained from under her freckled, ruddy skin. “Well, your guy is still shite.”

Noticeably, Dorian didn’t disagree.

He was distressingly silent after that for a while.

Trevelyan found that as magical and wonderful as the Fade was, he hated fighting in it.

Nothing seemed to have any actual weight. These apparitions that assailed them so frequently didn’t tear, didn’t bleed, didn’t show any sign that he’d done them damage until they suddenly weren’t there anymore. Sometimes they would jitter and fall through the ground that to him was completely solid. Sometimes they split into two pieces and those two pieces would simultaneously attack anew. Sometimes they would walk on air as though it was ground.

Sometimes Trevelyan did a few of those things himself, and was struck with a horrible disorientation that made it hard to aim.

The only positive to all of this, the only thing that kept his mood afloat, was that through it all, the demon was finally talking to them. Slivers of words meant for each of them, little jibes that seemed harmless at first but could build.

“Sera, Sera, Sera.”

Even the knowledge that the demon knew her name was enough to make her clutch at her bow harder, pull an arrow.

“If you shoot an arrow at me, I’ll know where you are.”

Trevelyan was in the middle of trying to navigate a breathing rock face when he felt Sera shuffle closer to him, voice tight and loud. “Out of my head, bitch-balls!”

There was a little something for each of them. Though Solas’ was unfair—a string of words he couldn’t understand with the simplistic Elvish he’d self-taught. And Solas, growing ever more closed off since what had happened with his friend and the mages, refused to share what had been exchanged.

For Bull at least, it was simple. Possession.

“Imagine the carnage he will make of the world outside. A new and glorious purpose for the Elder One.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Bull growled. Though his front was thin, as it was very clear that this was the exact opposite of what he wanted to see happen.

Dorian clucked his tongue, not bothering to turn back as he spoke to them, merely pushing ahead so quickly that it was almost a hassle to keep up with him. “You really must stop reacting so strongly. You’re only giving it more to feed off of,” he chided. “Be a wall like your Inquisitor here.”

The praise didn’t have time to sink in before Fear turned his attentions to their mage, the odd one out in their little party. “Oh, is that you, Dorian? I almost didn’t recognize you there not surrounded by maleficar and slavers. How interesting it will be, to see you destroyed by your terrors.”

His feet came to a halt. “Wait, what? --I am _serving_ the Elder One! Your boss!” And then suddenly Dorian was throwing on as much indignance as he could muster, looking up into the roiling green and black sky as though he expected to see a string of eyes he could direct his anger towards. “Why are you targeting _me_?”

There was no reply but more spiders crawling down from the high fade rocks.

Once they were done, into the smoldering ether he muttered, ruffled, “Bloody demon…”

As he passed Trevelyan and heard the way he was snickering, he gave him a very unamused glare. It just made him laugh harder.

Despite being broken up with annoying and pulse-jumping spider fights, he was enjoying the show. How could he be afraid of anything that spoke to them with such a pretty, gravely voice? Unlike with the others, it said nothing to him—for he had no fear it could feed upon through words. So in a way, rather than being unnerved, Trevelyan was calmed.

In this choking, warping ocean the others seemed to cling to him as their driftwood, and it was nice to be mostly curious, to be the only person there not teetering and about to crumple in on himself.

That is, until they ran into Divine Justinia. And she insisted on forcefeeding him back his memories of what happened at the Conclave.

He didn’t like making the Fade about him.

He didn’t like being put on par with the rest of the unreality and distortions here. Didn’t like having to think about himself in it.

Not to mention, he’d grown accustomed to the amnesia. True, just after the Conclave explosion, when he’d been preparing to bolt and leave Haven behind the moment things turned against him as they always did, the gap in his mind had been maddening. He had no idea how to process the situation without knowing how it had come about, his faith—that there was _no Maker_ —shaken by the insistence of others that it was somehow divine, and the terrifying notion that he was a vessel for something greater instead of his own person. His world had stopped making sense to him.

But he’d found people to talk to, particularly people like Sera who was so delightfully concise at separating the fuzzy and unclear from the practical, and people like Solas who gave him ready explanations to believe in that made physical sense instead of sheer belief, and the crippling, brooding doubt started to pull away. Then, slowly, the amnesia became a curtain, instead of a yawning chasm.

His old life, empty and worthless, stood behind it.

His new life, full of people and a role to play, was where he stood now.

He didn’t like having them bridged.

There he was again in that awful Templar recruit armor that was fastened all wrong, built for a warrior with powerful swings instead of a hunter who stalked and sliced quick. He couldn’t even reach for his bow, the way the incompetent who helped him put it on had rigged the shoulders. There he was looking for a face among the mages he wasn’t even sure he’d recognize now, dying of anxiety and boredom and drawn to the old church solely by the prickling of his sensitive ears.

_The abomination was twice his height at **least,** limbs gaunt and sinewy, flesh and rock and clothing all melded together at the seams. When it looked down upon him he saw pure hatred and contempt in its gaze, the kind that comes from being completely alone, for years and years._

_Divine Justinia, who had yet to show herself at the Conclave proper, was there in its grasp, her clothing torn and her hair fallen free. Her wrinkled face was twisted in an ugly expression of fear, mages in uniforms he didn’t know yet holding her fast._

_Yet that grip slackened as the orb in the abomination’s hand pulled the life from her, and with the last of her strength she knocked it towards the door where Trevelyan stood, silently watching, unable to arrive at a course of action without knowing what he was even seeing._

_But like an idiot, he saw a glowing green orb rolling towards him, shiny and beautiful and humming with an old song that resonated in his mind, and on pure reflex went to grab it._

_It burned and sputtered and sank its anchor into him, and as his screams of pain mingled with the monster’s screams of rage, his old world ended._

Trevelyan didn’t feel like recounting all of it, but he did tell them the most important part.

“So, Corypheus’ orb gave me the Anchor. Shocking, yes?”

Dorian gave them all a look like he _was_ shocked—shocked that the rest of them didn’t already know that. “You all really _did_ think it was from Andraste?” Then he started laughing, that glorious mocking bark that had him briefly bent over. “I thought that was just the party line.”

“ _I_ never did,” Trevelyan reminded him, somewhat indignantly too. “I kept telling everyone that didn’t make sense. Now I have proof. –Well, Josie will probably insist I don’t tell the public at large, but...”

“Well, yes, but I thought that was _why._ Because you’d seen it and knew where it actually came from. You really didn’t know?” Something entered the smug look in his eyes, something that softened the cut of the mockery.

“These memories were taken from him by the Nightmare,” Justinia said patiently, not even bothering to look Dorian’s way. “To create confusion and self-doubt.”

“Ah, yes…The sewing discord and all…”

The Iron Bull whistled low, throwing his ax over his shoulder as he shifted his weight off his bad leg. “So, the crazy magic shit comes from more crazy magic shit. Go figure. The Seeker’s gonna have another crisis of faith when we tell her.”

“She better not,” Trevelyan scowled, putting his hands on his hips. “I never thought it was Andraste. I told her that.”

“Yeah, but faith isn’t so easily swayed by other people. When you really believe in something it’s hard to change your mind.”

“Are we just gonna forget the part where the friggin’ demon _ate his memories_?” Sera interjected, face pinched and nervously running her fingers over the curve of her bow. “We are? _Great_.”

Solas was the only one who said nothing. Trevelyan wished the others could follow his example.

The next set of memories was even more unpleasant to uncover.

He was still in the Fade. It was hard to climb with the Templar armor.

_Spiders chittered below him, large and filled with legs and eyes as they skittered up the rock after him. It was hard to breathe, every gasp pulling sparkling dust into his lungs and making the world sway. It wasn’t a large cliff—he had scaled larger—but the top seemed impossibly far away, arcs of green through the air the only promise of safety at the top._

_Divine Justinia reached for him as a rock he was holding to steady himself simply vanished, and despite her wizened years managed to partially haul him over the edge. At least enough for him to do the rest of the work. He could still hear clacking below, rattling noises that were beginning to sound like whispering. Maker, he hated the whispering._

_They ran for the hole in reality, the green bleeding oval that led to where life was solid, even if it was charred to ash. And the two of them together almost made it._

_Something picked her up by the ankle like she was a cheap little toy when he wasn’t looking. He heard her cry and turned only in time to see the terrible, aching sadness on her face, the knowledge of a life ended and unfinished. She told him, “Go”. As though it mattered to her._

_But it was no longer her business. No longer her concern._

_She was gone. He reached for her like a child before his nature snapped back to him, and then he sprinted through that rift alone._

She was watching him carefully as he came back to his current surroundings, hands on his temples and eyes burning. The experiences felt fresh, sensations and visions that should have been dulled by the passage of time assaulting him as though it had only just happened.

In a sense, for him, they had.

It was an odd, discordant sensation, to have new memories interlocking with old, with the ones that took place just before and just after. Waking up to Cassandra, to the rift, to the mark on his hand, no recollection of the night before.

No, that was…incorrect. Not all of his memories had been taken from him back then. Little scraps remained.

Or, they _had._

“That’s not how it happened,” he muttered to himself, pushing his fingers through his hair. All of it sounded correct, all of it slid neatly into place in his mind, but he was dead certain that it was overlaying over something that didn’t fit. The fragments of his memory he’d held before were different. But he couldn’t remember now what it was that wasn’t the same.

He eyed the spirit wearing Justinia’s face warily. Maybe it wasn’t the truth. Maybe it was just a plausible explanation.

“Nothing in the Fade is real,” he said, louder. To the others it probably sounded like a non-sequitur.

“Justinia” smiled, and nodded. “Nothing but you.”

“You’re not real either.”

“If you wish to tell yourself that.”

Iron Bull stepped forward, an expression that looked disgustingly like concern on his face. “Uh, Boss? What are you and the lady talking about?”

“Justinia died in the Fade.” Trevelyan paused a moment, hands on his hips. “—Which I’m sure we all could guess, but just so you know. In case anyone thought this was anything but a spirit.”

All but the mages present took a step back from “her”, though she expressed no emotion at their sudden wariness.

Trevelyan continued to speak, voice stalling in patches. “I didn’t learn anything new. This is the one memory I _thought_ was already mine and now I’m not sure any of this is. So that’s great. For all I know, it was always a spirit, and I never saw Justinia in here.”

“Are you saying the memories do not appear genuine?” Solas stepped towards him, hands behind his back. “What is it about them that gives you such doubt?”

“It’s—nothing. It’s wrong, that’s all. It’s just wrong.” He couldn’t say how. He didn’t remember what it had been before.

Sera approached the spirit, trying to look fearsome. It was really quite effective, and he would have to compliment her on the look later. Particularly as Justinia was slowly starting to devolve into light. “If you’ve been messing with Quizzy’s head…”

Solas remained at his side, not looking at them but at Trevelyan, and his mark. As though he were a puzzle to solve. “The Nightmare demon is what caused the loss of memory. Perhaps this ‘wrongness’ stems from that as well. Tell me, Inquisitor—does it feel worse during the segments that take place in the Fade? Do you notice any particular differences regarding your appearance, or self…?”

His head spun, wanting to answer the questions but also completely unwilling to think back on any of that while they were still standing in the non-reality that had been tampering with him in the first place. Outwardly he wanted to sound authoritative, but all he managed to do was stammer. “I—we—will discuss it later. When I’ve had time to think and when our lives are in… _less_ peril.”

And, blessedly, Solas nodded. “You are quite right. My apologies. There is a time and place for such discussion, and that is not now. It is simply…worrisome.”

He looked back to the spirit for guidance on where to go next, but she was gone. Her light was moving along through the rock, Sera following suit. “Come on! Before we get lost again!”

Bull clapped him on the back as he moved to catch up, and the gesture was somehow comforting in its simplicity. Solas moved after the two of them in his usual calm gait, albeit somewhat quicker than normal, and then that just left Trevelyan and Dorian.

Dorian who was just watching him, somewhat intently.

Trevelyan frowned, feeling far too raw for the scrutiny. “What?”

“Nothing. You just—” He paused.

“ _What?”_

He sighed, hands on his hips and looking away. There was a weariness in his eyes, something unfamiliar and frightening in its sincerity. “I just think it must be—unpleasant. To have someone poking around in your thoughts.”

What could he say to that? It wasn’t an expression of sympathy but it wasn’t _not_ an expression of sympathy either. And if there was anything he was ill-practiced at, it was being sympathized with. “I—yes, it is.”

 

_When he first heard a voice outside of his own, outside of the demon’s that was quickly becoming his own, it was like a lifeline._

_Things that would have made him curious or amused only agitated and chafed, fed into his sensory overload. Furniture on the ceiling was a fascinating phenomenon, but right now the furniture should **stay where it’s supposed to be** when it was **in his own head.** His every nerve was raw, and it was perhaps a good thing that the scraggly-haired youth that approached him disappeared when he blinked, because Trevelyan’s snap reaction was to attempt to strangle him just to have something to take all this out on._

_“Envy is hurting you,” the boy said from behind, to the side, from everywhere. His voice was dry and cracked, like he hadn’t had water for days._

_“It isn’t **hurting me** it’s just **pissing me off** ,” he growled, pulling at his own hair._

_For a moment he saw wispy blond locks over an ashen face, sickly features that drooped all hiding under a large and heavy hat._

_"Your anger is a hurt. Mirrors on mirrors, a face it can feel but not fake. Your faces you can fake but not feel. You’re stuck in you, and what you reflect is yourself, and now you’re tearing it apart.”_

_He could not debate. He could not ask for clarification. He could only nod, letting out a pathetic whine._

_"I want to help.”_

_The world around him breathed in an out, steady and closing._

_“You, not Envy.”_

_The pressure on him was like the pressure you would apply to a bleeding wound, and he forced himself to clear away the loose blood. The parts of him that had already leaked out._

_The boy told him to push. To stretch Envy with all of him, to force it to make so much that it lost control. Trevelyan’s insides felt too small and compact to succeed at a plan like that, but it was a plan nonetheless, and it was more than he’d had a minute ago._

_“Keep going up. You’re more **you** there than you are **Envy**.”_

_Anything. Anything. As long as he could leave. As long as he could become so one with himself that his mind became a shadow again, instead of the all-encompassing presence it was now._

_He would be anywhere and do anything, as long as he didn’t have to think about **himself.**_

 

“ _Why are they spiders_?” he gasped, scrambling back and reaching for his bow.

“Spiders?” Sera was firing arrows faster than he’d ever seen her do before, and another twinge of jealousy and a desire to prove himself against her overrode whatever it was that was making his heart race and his feet stumble. “They’re not spiders! I’d take bloody spiders!”

“Spiders beat demons _any day_ ,” the Iron Bull agreed, kicking one of the spiders and caving its face in.

But Sera shook her head at that too, hair whipping around her messily. “They’re _nothin’._ They’re not demons they’re just bloody _nothin’_.”

“Well, you must give it credit—for ‘nothing’, it is doing a pretty good job of kicking our asses,” Dorian spat out, one of the spiders convulsing in a lightning strike and then splitting into two, perfectly functional and unharmed, halves.

Trevelyan shot to slice through one with an arrow, sticking it in a piece of thorax and then exploding. The explosion made it suck in on itself until nothing remained.

“Feh.”

He had lost his particular brand of viciousness since the encounter with Justinia, and it was getting harder to focus on the combat in front of them

Getting his memories back should have been a happy occasion, but there was too much going on. A mixture of delighted thoughts and painful ones that made it too hard to commit to one particular “mood”. Maybe once he’d had some time he would sort it out and decide it was a net positive. But that would take a while of stewing and—he shuddered— _reflection._

The area they had reached was more like a valley than a rocky path, little water pools that retreated from their feet as they stepped through them littering the area. He found some comfort in thinking that it was drawing back from him in fear, turning his burning gaze around them. There was black, oily rock in every direction, nearly sheer cliff faces that he had no hope of scaling. The way forward wasn’t so readily apparent.

The little plot of graves stood in the center of this indent in the land, a neat and tidy fence as one might find in a Chantry yard surrounding them. Seeing them brought some of his wind back. A dark little tableau that only he wanted to approach.

“It’s _creepy_.”

“Yes,” is all he said in return.

Sera. Iron Bull. Solas. Dorian. Varric. Mahariel. Hawke. All the little adventurers who had accompanied him on this trip, their names precisely carved into the granite, or at least what looked like granite. Underneath were simple words and phrases. He stepped through the gate, kneeling on the soft, wet ground to take a closer look, to read more carefully. There was valuable insight there, as there always was when a demon was involved. It was part of why he so loved having Cole around.

As he was reading Dorian’s tombstone and puzzling over what the word “Temptation” could mean in the context of fear, a hand shot up from the ground and grabbed his knee.

He jerked back, purely on reflex. The creature let him go, scrabbling through the dirt, stiffly and jerkily, as though each movement was disconnected to the next, like a series of still poses transitioning in front of him one after the other. As it escaped from its prison, he realized that he knew what this thing was. Had seen it, and many others like it, before.

It was another one of the twisted, burned up corpses from the explosion at the Conclave. He was starting to become immune.

“Curious,” he breathed. Eventually, it stopped moving, body twisted in a pose of complete, maudlin agony. What a wretched thing it was, indeed. A bit of the distaste he’d felt back then rose in his throat.

As though possessed he found himself drawing in again, seeking the flood of memory that seemed to accompany him any time he touched anything that was interesting in the Fade.

The moment his finger pressed down on the charbroiled, twisting flesh, he heard a voice he recognized echo in his thoughts.

“Little Lexy,” it crooned, soft and intimate, “The wayward son. Are you enjoying yourself? Do you not feel right at home here, in this transient world where even the worst pain has no meaning? Feeding on the memories of the dead and fearful around you to satisfy your curiosity?”

Something caught in his throat.

As though expecting some hidden threat to be whispering at his side, he whirled around. The others were still looking—still trying to find a route through this muggy, boggy dip in the world. There was no one beside him. No one who heard it outside of him.

His eyes were dragged back to the little gravestone plot. Haltingly, he walked towards it. In the distance he could hear someone shouting something, the whiz of arrows and Iron Bull roaring as they faced down a hissing spiderling.

Somehow he had missed it before, but his own grave stood there too. Just a little bit separated from the others, parted from them by the thin metal of the fence. Just far enough away to know that it didn’t belong.

It wasn’t the first time he’d felt like this.

If he was _going_ to now--

Well, of course it would be _here_.

Trevelyan didn’t feel fear the way that other people did. Even his reactions to spiders were more like a disgusted impulse than a sense of dread. A jolt that he could feel in his toes as it got him moving. He felt his stomach turn to lead, felt his entire body suddenly not feel like it belonged to him.

Life was smooth, and easy, until it wasn’t, and then suddenly without any warning he was alone, in the air a few feet behind his body, looking over his own shoulder.

He shook his head. The feeling did not go away.

These people were real. Here he stood, surrounded by people who felt things. Were things. Their fears were things they could lose, lives they didn’t wish to lead, missteps they didn’t want to take. They looked into their futures and saw clear as day things that they cared about. That was what fear was about, after all. The preservation of what was important to you, be that life, limb, or loved ones.

Maybe that was why it didn’t feel the same to him. Maybe that was why everything felt so shallow.

_Envy, hungry for knowledge, hungry for understanding. An empty, soulless husk, filling itself with nonsense and words to try and make itself more than it was. A prisoner of its own shell, studying a world that perplexed it as little more than an outsider pretending to be like everyone else. When their faces were finally the same, what difference would there be?_

His grave read “Mirrors”.

As he stared, Sera walked over to it, taking out a small brush that she always kept on her person and in tiny letters under “Mirrors” she wrote in, “also big hairy spiders”.

Trevelyan just barely managed to restrain his laughter, the tension inside him bubbling up again. He held her shoulder as she stood, saw the slight tremor in her smile that belied how utterly freaked out she still was. “I’ll trade you spiders for your ‘nothing’ any day.”

“You should tell baldy to get to a—a fear-switchy spell,” she spat, glowering at Solas.

“Such a thing would fall under the purview of blood magic, I believe,” he said, passing a look at Dorian.

Both Dorian and Sera made a face at that.

Curiously, Trevelyan read his grave again, trying to summon once more the soul-crushing worthlessness that had just assailed him. He could not find it. It had scattered in their presence. Odd.

“Let’s move on. It’s just a cheap tactic to get us distracted.”

As they moved on, he glanced over the rest one more time. Everyone was accounted for here—Everyone who was with him, anyway. If he’d brought the others in his circle, perhaps he could have seen what frightened them too. But, perhaps it wasn’t really his place to know.

Interestingly enough, Mahariel’s tombstone also read, “Mirrors”.

Or at least, something that his mind read as “Mirrors”, letters scrambling to make sense for him when he couldn’t actually recognize the word. “Eluvian”.

 

_‘You are wrong, about yourself. You are more than just a mask you put on,’ the boy said in the echoing air around him._

_He maybe believed it, and rays of cold light cut deep swathes through the smoggy darkness that surrounded him._

 

The woman following Varric and Mahariel as they reconvened near the rift had sun-browned skin, pale blue eyes, and golden hair tied in a frazzled bun. Her features were hard, the kind that spoke of weariness and loss with nothing to show for all her labors. Trevelyan had met her before, and knew her to be Hawke.

When he had first seen that she carried a staff, he had been curious about what her magic specializations were. She claimed not to care much for elementals like fire, or ice, and to hear it from Varric she had very strongly negative opinions about collaborating with spirits despite having a spirit healer in her circle. And he certainly didn’t trust much of what he’d read in _Tale of the Champion._ What kind of mage was she, then?

The kind that liked to use magic to toss her enemies around like ragdolls, he had soon discovered.

It was a brutal style, fast and practical. There were no elaborate gestures, no thoughtful and delicate twirls of her staff, no flash or light or even any real sound while she cast. It was like her magic was a physical extension of her self, a simple manifestation of her will struggling against the laws of reality. She slammed her staff into the ground, and the spiders scuttling towards her flattened, twisted, and popped, as though they were being crushed by a large, invisible boot.

To him, Hawke was the most beautiful person there.

Varric was bringing up the rear between the two women, setting traps on any that followed them. “I told you Hawke!” he was saying, bolts slicing through the spiders that were able to dodge the effects of her spells. “I told you we just needed to follow where the demons were coming from!” He was clearly exhausted, hair sticking to his scalp and aim wavering a bit, but unbloodied.

Well. Not bloodied any further.

“I’m so pleased, Varric!” she shouted, and he wondered how someone could slip that much sarcasm into their voice while still smiling, and happily at that. “Just like Kirkwall!”

Catching sight of Trevelyan, Varric slowed and gave him a nod. “Just, like, Kirkwall.”

“Kirkwall sounds fun,” he said, a little too brightly perhaps.

“So glad you could join us, Hawke!” they heard rumbling in the air around them. It was close now. The voice had always felt close from an audio perspective, able to hang right behind his shoulder or hovering somewhere in the air, but now it was different. Now the energy that it was infused with was palpable, each syllable leaving little ripples in Trevelyan’s mind if he paid them too close attention. “I was beginning to worry you’d arrive late to a party of corpses as usual. Then we’d be playing all alone.”

She looked up, though the voice was not coming from the sky. “I’ve fought plenty before this point and plenty after it. I’ll claw my way out of here if I have to.”

“Oh yes. Have to make it back to your little wolf, don’t you? Tell me, do you think he will stay home, like a good little pup?” The demon’s laughter swirled in the air around them, and Hawke’s eyes reddened with rage. “Do you think he followed you still? Do you think perhaps he was at Adamant when the Archdemon came?”

“Hawke,” and it was Varric talking this time, and at his words Hawke turned her maddened gaze on him. For just a moment she looked a little like Cassandra. “You know as well as I do that even if Fenris followed us up here he’d be kicking more ass than anyone. I wouldn’t be surprised if we got back and found him ripping Erimond’s heart out of his chest.”

“Yeah,” she said sullenly, as though ripping someone’s heart out of their chest was an everyday occurrence. “Right.”

“I told you,” Mahariel chided, hooking her arm through Hawke’s and encouraging her forward to join the rest of the group. “He’s just trying to get a rise out of you. Don’t do it. Don’t feed the demon.”

“Mahariel.” The demon’s voice continued to reverberate in oddly angled striations in the air. Trevelyan could hold out his hand and feel it tingling on the skin under his gloves, on the sensitive pads of his fingertips. “So quick to give advice. So quick to give commands. Even your love chained to a throne and marriage he never wanted on the strength of your words alone. How many more do you seek to ensnare for a cause you cannot even guarantee is just?”

She gave a disgusted snort, shaking her head. “Very poor tactics, demon. Not impressed. Sloth did better. Try again.”

“You chide your fellows for following Corypheus. But the Architect yet lives, does he not?”

The lines of voice were in a specific pattern, he suddenly realized, moving his hand through the strands and vibrations left in their wake. They had been too far before to notice. The lines so far apart, the strength in them so weak, that it had all just seemed like discordant noise. But now the threads were strong, and tightly woven.

They were a web.

Mahariel said nothing. The dark green lines of her vallaslin stood out more starkly against her face as it slightly paled. And it looked for a moment like her hold on Hawke’s arm was less to provide support and more to be supported.

Trevelyan cleared his throat. He would ask what that in particular meant later. He was too busy making sure his breath was even. “We don’t have time for this. You have a problem with this creature, tell it yourself in person as we leave.”

The added numbers of their combined parties seemed to do wonders for everyone’s morale, his own included. That made four archers including himself, three mages, and a warrior who was worth two people all on his own. Those were good odds to go up against a monster, he thought. Enough to push his heart back down from where it was trying to lodge in his throat.

The ground under their feet began to crack as they picked up the pace. Acid green lines carved out swaths of rock that went hurtling upward, always just barely missing their feet as they broke into a run. The air around them tried to constrict, tried to force itself from their lungs.

As the light of the rift began to overtake them, he saw patches of warm sunlight in Justinia’s shape beside them. The light seemed to tug at the threads as they vibrated once more, as the demon boomed,

“ **Now we will see. You are frauds, liars, nobodies, and** **monsters. And you will tremble as you are eaten alive by your fears**.”

He knew what it was doing. Trying to whittle them down. The anticipation, the slow dread, that hadn’t been enough to put them off and now it was trying for the heavy hitting. But the heavy hitting only bolstered his resolve.

“ _I don’t tremble_!” he shouted, pulling an arrow from the quiver at his back. And suddenly there it was, between them and their way back home. His showed his teeth. “And I **_kill spiders_**.”

 

_The courtyard was large and beautiful and crumbling, like the rest of Therinfal. A storm had begun to rage as they raced over, whipping up Vivienne’s coattails and making the pieces of Bull’s scant armor clack against his body. Rain fell not in sheets but stumbling, uneven waves, pattering in a discordant rhythm off the surface of Cassandra’s shield as she held it aloft._

_"There. There it is.”_

_The Envy demon was ugly and mottled, anatomically improbable in every way and oddly put together, full of pieces that didn’t fit. Each limb was different lengths, different numbers of fingers, odd veiny patterns crawling up the biceps. It had one large mouth and no other facial features to speak of, head more like a tumorous growth than anything else. Its neck bobbed, squashing into something thick and short and then stretching out to long and thin almost instantaneously as it screamed. It was the most disgusting thing that Trevelyan had ever laid eyes upon._

_But it was still less disturbing to look at than if it had been wearing his face._

 

The Fear demon fought them with a proxy. A tall, withered creature with a deformed head and long, tangled limbs jutting from its back. It hovered in the air as though suspended by an invisible string, long gnarled toes brushing daintily across the rock as it jerked and spasmed through unreality towards them. Arrows aplenty rained down upon its body, but it seemed to absorb them into itself rather than show any visible signs of pain.

After a few minutes of this, he had to revise his thought. The demon fought with _several_ proxies, it was just that the withered thing in tattered robes with too many limbs was the biggest one. Little fearlings came at them just as before, still spiders. Still impossible and loud.

Small parts of Trevelyan froze through the fight as he saw them, his plans being overridden by a need to crush and kill as quickly as possible, and a frustration that this was not happening.

But when push came to shove, he wasn’t alone, and this made strategy possible.

Iron Bull swung his great axe and easily carved the spiders to pieces, shouting about demons the whole way. As those pieces attempted to regain themselves, Dorian set them on fire. As the Fear proxy swiped for them, Solas cast barriers that dulled its claw fingers and broke the cords it tried to pull around them. When it got too close to Varric as he employed his toxin clouds against the smaller demons edging in on the fight, Sera froze it with an alchemically modified arrow.

Mahariel cracked part of its head open with a single precise shot, Hawke forced it to its knees with a slam of her staff, and Trevelyan leaped quicker than he thought possible to slice it to ribbons with his favorite knives. They gave off a pleasant metallic _shing_ as he worked.

The demon vanished, relocating to the far corner of the field, and Trevelyan snarled like the wild animal he wished so dearly he was as it made the ground under them blister and boil. And then they began the dance again.

He roared with mad laughter he didn’t feel and tried to keep from wondering whether this was them killing the demon, or more equivalent to hacking off an arm that would regrow later.

Even if it didn’t, it had eight after all.

             

_The demon screamed, and as it did it shifted through the shapes it had taken, the faces it had stolen._

_The first was a woman in armor so old he did not recognize its colors, long blond hair cascading down her cracking shoulders as she wailed about promises and some “Elder One”. Iron Bull roared and brought his axe down on the nape of her neck, cutting her back open and making the woman collapse into a pile of churning goo._

_Across the courtyard he saw a nearly-naked warrior, tall and covered in bangling jewelry over freckle-spotted skin, hair in a long brown braid. The demon was trying to hide in itself, but it wasn’t doing a very good job. It lunged for Vivienne and she froze it in place. Once she had frozen it, she exploded the ice with fire._

_He saw an old scholar reach for Cassandra in mock supplication, robes burnt and tattered, hair white as snow and skin wrinkled from sun and age. The demon’s fingers were long and winding, too many joints and too sharp fingernails as the Divine’s Right Hand lopped them off, before bashing it back with her shield. Once more the disguise fell._

_Trevelyan’s pulse quickened as he saw Lord Seeker Lucius’ pig nose, torturously thin lips, scarred apple cheeks, and beady blue eyes. He saw a flash of a gangly young man, someone who shouldn’t exist but did, and then thick, black liquid was spilling from a neat slit across its throat. He was already running towards the ripple in the dirt as it fell, racing for the mottled demon as it tried one more appearance, one more form that it hadn’t had a chance to get quite right._

_The hair sprouted first, thick and black and shiny. Unlike real hair the bangs did not stick wetly to its forehead in the rain, only pulling back behind the ears to frame its pale face. Next came the mouth, the grin just a bit too wide, too stretched on full lips that contained teeth so razor sharp that they would have easily lopped off its tongue if they had been real. As the rest of the face shaped, nose straightening and cheek bones raising, it started to speak, a soft Marcher intonation with rough, angry guttural flecks. “ **You** would **ha** ve **been—"**_

_He felt bile rise in his throat and he took his knife and plunged it directly into one of the demon’s growing eyes before it could finish the transformation._

_And then, in a way, he watched himself die._

The proxy of the Fear demon shrieked as its head popped off. The body that was left behind stayed twitching in the air as it dissolved, like a hanged body, fingers shriveling and dirty, ripped robes peeling off like tree bark. Eventually there was simply nothing there, but nothing in a way that left a very noticeable void, a lack of presence like a silhouette against the bright morning sun.

The head, meanwhile, scuttled drunkenly about the ground for a moment before it tumbled and rolled, legs constricting and curling inward like a spider’s. There at their feet it remained.

Trevelyan stood there, one of the only ones with energy to spare, gasping for breath, watching for signs of another proxy.

No, the demon wasn’t dead.

But it was stunned, in pain, and the rift that it had been guarding was no longer blocked.

“Well.”

There was a pop, and a sizzle, and then an arc of electricity struck Trevelyan square in the back. He fell forward and hit the rock, spinning gravity free for one terrifying moment before sliding to a halt with his eyes full of stars.

Dorian was looking down at him, head cocked to the side. The light of the lightning in his fingers intermingled with the glow of the Fade rock around them, casting disquieting shadows on his normally lovely features. “All this adventuring together has been _so_ much fun, but I rather think this is my cue to leave you here to die before one of you tries the same with me.”

Anger kept Trevelyan from drifting out with the knock to his head. Sudden and flooding, narrowing his vision until all he saw was Dorian. “Don’t be stupid,” he said through clenching teeth. “You step out there, you’ll face an army of Inquisition soldiers and Grey Wardens together.”

“I’ll take those chances.” Dorian laughed, another jittery thing with too little breath. “You have any idea how much easier to kill they are than you?”

The fury made it hard to think. Everything had been going so perfectly, everything had been working, _they_ had been working, and now—now it was all in pieces.

A roar that in the real world may have been earsplitting shook around them, some of the landscape shifting and sagging as it did. It resonated inside his core, making him feel mangled. Dorian’s eyes flickered from Trevelyan to the demon, and for just a moment it looked as though he had something more to say, eyes crinkling anxiously.

Trevelyan hauled himself to his feet, unable to hear it through the pounding in his ears. He wasn’t sure if the saliva flying from his teeth as he spat out words was from being electrocuted or from the bestial fire that had suddenly taken hold of him. “If you run, I will **_chase you_**.”

Dorian’s damnably perfect lips curled. “Yes, they do say that about _wild dogs_ , don’t they?”

He ran, slamming his staff on the ground as he did so.

And, feeling every bit the wild dog, Trevelyan followed, moving through snakes and terrors that vanished in an instant as he threw them aside.

It didn’t matter that his legs ached. It didn’t matter that he was wasting time. That the people he needed to protect were behind him, too weary to move, unguarded. It didn’t matter that he could hear ringing in his ears. The only thing that mattered was that Dorian was getting closer to the green light, that its warm rays were reaching for him, that it would get to Dorian first—

And then—then he was swallowed.

Gone.

Again.

The anger seeped away as though he’d been gutted of it, but instead of emptiness Trevelyan instead felt a kind of building anxiety, an unbearable screaming on the inside as his legs stumbled.

Everyone else needed to follow. He raced back, lungs still burning, body aching. “ _Get going!_ ”

Bull needed help getting to his feet, and Solas took a moment to cast a rejuvenation spell on them, mend at least some of the damage from the fight. Sera yelled at him when instead of heading for the rift with them he turned towards Mahariel and Hawke, who had strayed far from the battle fighting a couple of Pride demons who had wandered close hoping to pick off Fear’s leftovers. Trevelyan shouted her down and told her to run, something he was sure he would have to apologize for later.

If there was a later.

The screaming inside didn’t stop until all of them, including Varric with one last worried glance, were through, and right as he was breathing a sigh of relief, leading Mahariel and Hawke to follow suit, the giant spider stepped between them and the real world.

And then, a choice needed to be made.

Self-sacrifice was not on the table today. Even if he wasn’t a selfish bastard who wanted to live, even if the sight of the spider didn’t make him slightly weak in his already stiff knees, he was the only one with the mark on his hand. There could be no replacing him.

So, it was either Mahariel, or Hawke.

To Trevelyan, all life was equal. That was why it was so easy for him to kill or let live based on personal preference.

In five seconds that seemed to drag on for an eternity, he ran through the pros and cons of losing one over the other.

On the one hand, Hawke was friends with Varric. It would hurt him to lose her, and to hurt Varric, who had been so patient with Trevelyan’s initial sullenness after the Conclave, who had asked him how he was and told him jokes and stories through long journeys and bitterly cold nights, that would be…wrong. He didn’t know why, but he knew it would be. And that mattered, a lot, so he kept it in mind.

On the other hand, Mahariel was the most senior Grey Warden present, and sympathetic to his cause. Something would need to be done about the order once they exited the Fade. They couldn’t simply be allowed to operate freely under their own banner, at least not yet, not with the way that they had been so easily corrupted. But it would be criminal to just send away perfectly good, highly-trained soldiers. It would be advantageous to give them a handler, so to speak, and she fit the bill. She wasn’t just high-ranking. She was seasoned, but young, relatively speaking. Not entrenched in the secrecy, ritual, and defeatism that the Wardens were mired in as a whole. And unlike her Fereldan recruits, who she spoke of fondly and often, she treated the wardens under Clarel, the ones who’d failed to come to her aid during the Fifth Blight and hunted her like a traitor, with a cold professionalism. She had the sympathies of an outsider with the status and authority to kick the others into line, and that was not something he could get anywhere else.

Hawke was still friends with Varric, though.

But Hawke was just one person. She had no claim to Kirkwall outside of her fame within, no family left to call on save for her brother, a relatively low-ranking warden who’d been safely squirreled away when the conflict began, and no power to her name. As formidable a mage as she might be, that was all she was. Mahariel had connections, on the other hand—the king of Fereldan was one, according to Leliana. Morrigan was evidently another. And to hear tell of it, everyone from the king of Orzammar to the Qun’s newest Arishok owed her a favor or two. She was valuable.

And Hawke was friends with Varric. Hawke made Varric’s nerves settle, made him solid and breathe easier. She was the one friend who had never let him down, the one he would put himself in front of a Seeker’s sword for instead of running away.

There was no getting around the fact that Mahariel was valuable. More than that, she was vital. There was no guarantee anything from Adamant could be salvaged without her. Trevelyan needed her.

_But Varric needed Hawke._

It felt like something was tearing inside him, eyes darting between them. He knew his choice, he knew it, but he couldn’t make it.

Both of them looked like they were accustomed to being the one to make the sacrifice. For everything being down to them. He could see a tired determination in Hawke’s eyes, see that fire in Mahariel’s. Either one. Their lives were of equal worth. Left to their own devices they could argue for days over which of them didn’t deserve to leave. They didn’t have days. They didn’t even have minutes.

The Inquisition needed the Warden Commander.

And being Inquisitor was the only worthwhile thing he had ever done in his life.

“Hawke.”

Something shifted into place, and Trevelyan eased all indecision from his mind. It wasn’t good, but the pain went away, and that was something.

She didn’t need persuading. Like a coiled spring she just ran, magic making the already distorted air ripple around her as she cast at the Nightmare. It howled and screamed, body twisting and pulling aside. Just enough room for two nimble archers to dart their way through.

Varric, with all his stories and hope and _those ends never come…_

He would have to pray that he could learn to appreciate a tragedy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my original conception of my Inquisitor, he was just straight up a violent sociopath. He was very clever at hiding it, and not wholly incapable of sentiment—he did genuinely come to like his companions, including Dorian (who was not initially planned to be the romance but I ended up falling for him almost instantly). But the point was to essentially have my “evil playthrough”, with someone with no actual motivations besides getting to slaughter enemies and look like a good person while doing it with his exceptional lying skills.
> 
> As I played I realized that, the way the game is structured, a lot of the emotional beats of the story and the companion quests were unsatisfying with the idea that he was simply faking all of it (not to mention I couldn’t bring myself to make some of the more evil decisions, like sacrificing the Chargers), so I changed what he was to something different.
> 
> I hope who he is makes sense.


	11. Bad Blood

Skyhold as a whole was still not friendly to him, but at least it had stopped feeling actively hostile.

Fine time for that to happen, after almost dying.

The surgeon had spat on him when Cullen wasn’t looking and the healers had exchanged uneasy glances as they fixed up his back and whatever other organs had been damaged in the attack, yet all of them did their jobs without a word of complaint. Dorian had laid in that ugly sick-bed as he healed, weak and bloodless but full of such beautiful certainty about where he stood that he could have wept for joy. 

Eventually he came down from his melodrama high to notice that Trevelyan had returned from his mission with fresh bruises and cuts—even a scar, tucked at the back of his jaw near his ear. He had taken to sitting by his side every night. Not the overwrought blanket clutching of a man who feared he would die, but evaluating and patient.

They did not speak like before. Whenever Dorian tried to break the crushing silence Trevelyan would put a hand on his shoulder, nudge him down, and encourage him to rest instead. Devoid of emotion, neither kind nor dismissive. And Dorian would try to argue that he was certainly well enough to have simple conversation, but then he would find that maybe he really was too tired for it after all.

That was the extent of their interaction during that period, which might have been painful on its own if it wasn’t for the fact that while they thought him sleeping he would hear Trevelyan arguing with the healers outside his tent regarding his level of care, voice tense and upset.

When he had recovered he was told that he had been granted more freedom than before, practically allowed free range of Skyhold with the understanding that he was being watched at all times and to remain magically bound for the time being. It would have galled him if he didn’t find it funny. _Now that they’ve tossed you out, we’re keeping you._

At least someone would.

Who knew that all he had to do to gain their trust was get stabbed in the back?

When not assisting their arcane department or feeding their spy network information, he spent most of his time down in the basement library, the cobwebby one full of old texts deemed inappropriate for the public face of the Inquisition. It was one evening maybe a week after his recovery that he was making his way back up the stairs to get to his room for the night, having failed to notice in the candlelit space that it was midnight, when he heard some kind of fuss going on in the main hall.

Magically bound or not, eavesdropping was a simple enough matter in flickering firelight. He caught a few sentence fragments—“in the armory”, “keep it quiet”, “fetch the Inquisitor”.

Someone important had come to visit. More importantly, someone who couldn’t be met by the light of day, when patrons and allies arriving in Skyhold were being given their grand tour of the nonessentials of the keep.

A secret visitor?

A thrill of excitement wormed through Dorian’s spine. Dignitaries (people he was not allowed to be around or be seen by) passed through every other day, but most of them were boastful and well-announced. Rare was it that they received cloak-and-dagger missives under the dead of night.

At least, ones that didn’t belong to Leliana.

Naturally, he was going to get in on the action. His biggest enemy since the Venatori agent got in was crushing boredom, and this was a fine way to combat it, he thought. It was easy enough keeping out of sight as he made his way to the armory, the other agents distracted with their own tasks at so sudden an arrival. He used the battlements to slip inside the top floor, finding it refreshingly unoccupied so he had a front-row seat to whatever spectacle was to go on below.

Dorian was there after the guest had already entered, flanked by a handful of soldiers and wearing a hood. He made a cursory bow to the members of the Inquisition who were there waiting for him, evidently opting to stand. There was a magic staff clutched in his hand. Something polished and expensive, quite unlike the ragged staves and walking sticks of the rebel mages. If there was a bit more pomp to it, he would almost compare it to Madame de Fer’s accoutrements.

Strange. He moved closer, brow furrowed, trying to hear what was being said. It was hard to tell through flickering firelight but the idea of a noble mage resolved itself when he saw that the robes under the hood were Tevinter in nature.

But who from Tevinter would be visiting Skyhold as a _guest_ of all things--

The visitor threw off his hood.

Black hair lightened with faint flecks of grey.

Dark, bronze skin.

Steel grey eyes like his own—

Dorian’s breath froze in his chest. He remained where he was, lurking in shadow where the torchlight didn’t reach. Clutching the nearby railing for support, as he could no longer feel his legs.

Halward Pavus stood in the Inquisition’s armory with the commanding air one would expect of a magister on the senate floor, brow furrowed and hands on his hips. Trevelyan was sitting down, lounging in a chair at the table the way a jungle cat might as it contemplated its next meal. One of them was the product of years of careful breeding and strict schooling with all of the best teachers; the other owned the place, and knew it.

Wearing her favorite gold and blue dress, Josephine stood between them, well controlled calm a clear mask for the nerve-jangling task of introducing the Inquisitor to an angry magister. It seemed she was in the middle of her speech when Dorian had come upon them, glancing between the two as though looking for any sign that one of them was going to strike.

“…sure neither of us wants there to be an incident. Magister Pavus has promised to respect the powers of the Inquisition as long as this discussion remains private, and that you hear out his request. It is the least we can do for our negligence.”

“Negligence?” Trevelyan grinned broadly, turning from jungle cat to shark. “There was no negligence on our end, dear Josie. As I recall, we sent Magister Pavus several letters asking about his son as soon as his presence was confirmed at Haven. All ignored."

"I received _no letters_ ," Halward snapped, the mask of calm disintegrating the moment he opened his mouth. It had been so long since Dorian had heard his father’s voice—it was almost like listening to a stranger speak. A stranger whose familiar accent said _home_ and _family_ but also made him dizzy and sick with dread. “It seems your pretenses of contact regarding my _only heir_ were conveniently lost.”

“Conveniently for whom?”

“That’s quite enough.” Josephine raised her voice in the way that only she could, seeming to command the room without actually lifting her volume. “Let us restrain from personal attacks. There was miscommunication—we shall address it now.”

The shit-eating grin disappeared from Trevelyan’s face at that, and he looked over the two of them with an expression of calm contempt. “Alright. Fine. As long as Magister Pavus is willing to be reasonable.”

“I am very willing, thank you,” Halward said coldly.

A moment of quiet consideration followed that, before Trevelyan nodded. “Very well, Josephine. I’m sure I can take it from here.”

She looked somewhat stricken at the dismissal, looking almost frantically between the two of them, before she hesitantly made a little bow. “…If you wish, Inquisitor.”

“I do wish!” he added brightly after her as she left.

Then his eyes slid back to his target.

“To the matter at hand, then.” Halward took in a breath, and like he was sucking in his gut he resumed the mask of noble dignity that was so familiar, the one that Dorian had so longed to emulate when he was young and angry and unable to hide it. “Do not get me wrong. I am grateful that Dorian has not been executed. He has always been rebellious. But I see no further purpose in holding him here—you are only wasting your resources. Not to mention the scandal of being seen as harboring an enemy, even under guard.”

Trevelyan was good at wearing the mask too. “Oh?” was all he said in response. “And you would solve this how?”

“What I want is to be able to take him back to Qarinus with me. To deal with my son in the manner of my choosing.” The discussion dipped into quiet at that declaration, Dorian’s blood running ice cold. After a moment, he continued. “I am merely hoping to…spare the Inquisition some trouble. That is all.”

“Spare us some trouble?” Trevelyan laughed, shaking his head and looking away for just a moment. “Or were you hoping to spare yourself embarrassment?”

Nothing about his posture had changed, but one of his hands resting on the arm of his chair was gripping the wood so hard Dorian could swear he heard it creak. Something sharp entered his voice.

“You think I don’t know what you’ve been up to?” Finally, Trevelyan stood. If he wasn’t on the verge of throwing up, Dorian could have laughed. There he was, grinning, with those feral green eyes of his. “You think I didn’t have my people look into every aspect of Dorian’s history when I first saw him at Haven? You think I didn’t see what you were doing? Burning records, silencing witnesses, _burying_ evidence?”

“ _Inquisitor_!” How outlandish, how obscene. Father always bristled the most at the truth. “I find your remarks to be off-base and irrelevant. If there has been some coverup, it was not by my doing. I see no reason to involve it in this discussion. This is about what is to be done with Dorian _now_ , nothing more.”

But the Inquisitor pressed on, glancing around at the men and women who remained as guards, the loyal devotees of his power. “If you’re worried about your connection to the Venatori being discovered, you needn’t. I have no intention of letting him see daylight ever again. Well. Aside from the daylight that gets into the dungeon where we’re keeping him.”

The dungeon hadn’t been his home for quite a while now. Not that a room in the lower halls with just a bed and a chest was high living, but it wasn’t nearly as cold and certainly more comfortable. There was usually a guard stationed outside his door when he bothered to go down there, but with his injury lately it had felt more for his own safety than Skyhold’s.

So, that’s how he was playing it, was it?

“That is not—” Halward _never_ stammered, never changed his mind mid-sentence. He put his hands on his hips, as though to steady himself. “My reputation here is irrelevant.”

“And that’s why you came here alone, under cover of night, making me promise to keep our talk a secret.”

“I—" His hesitation was much shorter this time. “I am only here for Dorian. His health is my only concern.”

Remarkably…he sounded sincere. Even though he couldn’t have been.

Halward continued, features softening. “He has…committed crimes against you. You feel you must punish him for these crimes. That is your right, I am not denying that. But you must understand, I don’t want him to stay in a dungeon for the rest of his days. That is no life for a son of the Pavus line.”

“Even if he earned it himself?”

“It is not his fault. It is mine. My son, he hasn't been right in the head. Not since--" He stopped, choked on the words. Unwilling to confess to his crime. A flare of intense anger rose in Dorian’s chest, and he was tempted to reveal himself just to spit on him, to hit him, and call him a liar and hypocrite. “—Trust me that he can’t be held responsible for his actions. Just let me take him home. He won’t be a bother to the Inquisition or anyone else ever again.”

“A bother? Oh, Dorian’s no bother. Not in the least.” Trevelyan took a step forward, his expression turning ugly. Halward took a step back. “Actually he’s been quite useful as an information source. A bit tight-lipped about his comrades, naturally, but that just means I get some extra stress-relief in making him _talk_.”

It was hard to see from a distance but he was certain several emotions flashed through his father’s eyes then. Rage, sorrow, guilt— _fear._

“When I’m finally done with him, as a courtesy I’ll be sure to send him back to you. It won’t be hard. I just need to set aside one of my agents to carry the urn.”

“No.” His father was doing very well at controlling himself, but he was slipping.

Trevelyan cocked his head to the side, that awful smile still on his face. “No? You don’t want him dead? But I thought you found him so much _trouble_ , so _rebellious_. Would you like him sent back an empty husk instead? I could do that. It wouldn’t be very difficult. Just say the word, and your son will forever be a perfectly amenable, obedient—"

“ _No!_ ”

There was the anger again, the torches around them blasting white flame. Halward grabbed his staff, the scent of magic filling the air right as the soldiers around them drew their swords. For a moment they were in a standoff, Trevelyan’s eyes on Halward’s, his hand on a wickedly curved dagger that he’d drawn from his hip. But his father was in the Inquisition’s house, not the other way around.

A satisfied, knowing look passed over Trevelyan’s face. Halward slowly backed down, the flames dropping back to orange.

“That will not…be necessary.” He spoke like he was being strangled. Even the broken note of his voice was painful to listen to. “Do not destroy my son, I beg of you. Do whatever you must but please, spare him. He is my only child. I…I hear of you, I hear that you are merciful…”

“You heard incorrectly.” Trevelyan stabbed his dagger into the table. “I am an opportunist. If that happens to coincide with what is merciful, all the better for my reputation.”

Dorian didn’t want to listen any further, didn’t want to see the man who’d raised him grovel. But he was spellbound. His legs weren’t working. “Then take this opportunity. I am not a man of modest means. I will give you anything—anything at all that you want. If you will only leave him be.”

“Only that?” For a moment it seemed like he was going to continue to drag this on, the firelight flaring up as one of the soldiers nearby tossed in a log. It would have been fair. Entirely justified, within his power. But then, to both Halward’s evident relief and surprisingly enough Dorian’s, the Inquisitor’s voice softened a touch, turning his back to him instead of looming over him any longer. “Fine. You can discuss your debt to me with my advisors later.”

You could have cut the ensuing quiet with a knife. Most people would have missed the way Halward clutched at his staff as though it were a mere walking stick, the slightest stagger that was covered by years of self-control, but Dorian didn’t. “Thank you.” The words sounded rusty and unpracticed. “…Please, may I at least…see him again? One last time?”

Trevelyan didn’t look back. “No.”

Like a spell had been broken, Dorian was finally able to pull away. He slipped out to the battlements to get some air, the cold chill freezing the surface of his skin and bringing him back into himself instead of being stuck a few moments before.

Well. There was no chance of him getting any sleep now. Not sober, anyway.

 

Before he could make it to the tavern to buy some of their cheap Fereldan swill to drown his feelings in, Inquisitor Trevelyan caught him skulking about. He was holding in his hand a large dark bottle of liquid that read “Vintage 9 Rowan Rose”.

“A bit of advice from one who is used to sneaking around here. Wear less flashy clothes.” The moment Dorian turned his eyes on him he started smiling—not the ghastly expression of before but something tremulous, nervous, and unpracticed. “…You…saw, didn’t you?”

“Saw you terrify my father out of his smalls? Yes, I did.” Dorian took in a breath and then reached over to pat him on the cheek. “Found it _horrifically_ amusing. You’ll pardon me if I don’t laugh.”

“What I said—” He seemed to struggle to find the words briefly. “—You know I didn’t mean those things, right?”

“You mean you _don’t_ keep me in those drafty dungeons, in between bouts of torture? I’m _not_ your favorite punching bag?” Dorian gasped in mock horror, putting a hand to his less-than-affronted chest. “I am positively shocked at your treacherous deceit.”

Trevelyan laughed, and for a moment the squeezing pressure inside him lifted entirely. It wasn’t high and noble but childish and hitching, a relieved thing.

Curiosity—or rather, the returning desire to get shitfaced—got the better of him, and after a moment Dorian pointed to the bottle. “Please tell me one can get drunk on that.”

“I would think so.” He glanced down himself, allowing the change in subject almost gratefully. “I sometimes find alcohol while I’m out exploring. This one was locked in an old cupboard covered in dust, so it must be good. Care to try it with me?”

A part of him was tempted to refuse, because evenings like this required getting stupidly drunk _alone_ instead of near a perplexing man who made his heart beat uncomfortably fast for all sorts of terrible reasons. “I warn you, if you don’t keep your glass full you’re liable to only get in a sip before it’s gone.”

The smile that his remark earned was broad and surprisingly rewarding, considering it was also laced with unbearable smugness.

They slipped away, past the prying eyes of night-shifters and remaining scouts to a small, secluded mess hall near Skyhold’s gardens, Trevelyan moving in to sneak some glasses for the two of them from the kitchens as they made their way there. Dorian wasted no time, popping the cork on the Rowan Rose and pouring a healthy amount in both his own glass and, because he was a gentleman, his drinking partner’s.

It was positively delicious. Also, not nearly strong enough. He downed his whole glass and poured a second all the way to the top before he started speaking, swallowing another mouthful after the first sentence was past his lips.

"It’s so depressingly _typical_ of him." How he’d decided that he was going to be spilling his guts now, he’d never know. Perhaps it was just because Trevelyan was _right there_ when he needed an ear, and he’d always been so willing to listen before. He sat there with that carefully neutral expression, fingering the stem of his own glass as the only indicator of nerves. “You have no idea how many times I imagined something equally as pointless and predictable while I was still under Corypheus’ banner. I’m positive the only reason he’s come now is because he’s finally worked out a way to get me without running a risk to his reputation.”

Another swallow. All his time in the Venatori—Dorian had almost forgotten how much he missed _drinking_. There had been the odd night during that time, of course, inebriated and particularly self-loathing evenings with some of the more good-looking men of their little cult, but certainly nothing in the leadup to Corypheus’ ritual at the Conclave. And no time for anything after that, either, save the Winter Palace.

Maker, what he wouldn’t give to have more poison in his wine tonight. "I don't know what's more insulting, that he thinks he can just _show up_ and take me home and all will be forgiven, or that he sees me as some--some mental _invalid_ , like I'm permanently broken because of him."

"Believing so clearly causes him pain." Trevelyan smiled as he drank, the very picture of pleased calm with a placid voice and half-lidded eyes. Likely because he already got the chance to tell his father off, already had that catharsis. Lucky bastard. "It would serve him right to let him keep on thinking that he permanently destroyed his only child. Perhaps later I could have Leliana draft a false report that you were killed in combat."

Dorian gave a grim chuckle, finishing off his glass. "Has anyone ever told you that you are a cruel man?"

"No. But they should. I am."

There was something startlingly frank in that, stilling the next words on his tongue. He took just another taste of his glass before saying, “…Torturing him further won’t be necessary. I’d rather just have nothing further to do with him.” And Trevelyan was giving him a sort of dissecting look now, the one he’d seen before, and suddenly realized it for what it was. Concern. Painfully guarded concern. "Thank you, for…not giving me back to him. He is _very_ wealthy, and still powerful, despite the disgrace I've brought him. I wouldn't blame you if you traded me in for a few more favors."

“Never.” Trevelyan continued to smile, but it stopped reaching his eyes. “If he had insisted for one more second on taking you back I would have cut his guts out.”

Dorian couldn’t help himself laughing at that, pouring more wine. “I bet.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.” They lapsed into a companionable silence after that, albeit one that seemed to prickle in his warming fingers as he drank. The alcohol seemed to be loosening up his veins, if not his nerves. “I…suppose I do owe you an explanation.”

“You owe me nothing,” Trevelyan scoffed with a dismissive wave, though true to form his curiosity prevailed over his benevolence and he added, “Though if one is forthcoming I would love to hear it.”

“ _Someone_ should hear it.” Another glass full. Liquid courage, as it were. Also known as liquid bad decisions. “First off you need to know that I like men. As in, sex.”

Trevelyan stared at him for an uncomfortably long time at that.

Eventually, he asked, “Was that…supposed to be a secret?”

The burbles of a weak chuckle cut the sarcasm out of his reply. “Oh _unfortunately_ yes _._ I am simply abysmal at hiding it. My father disapproves.”

“ _That’s_ what all of this is about? Your family making a big deal about who you sleep with?”

It was evident by Trevelyan’s incredulously amused tone that his family hadn’t given two figs who in particular he chose to sleep with. Dorian would be envious, but he’d gotten the impression that the Inquisitor’s parenting was lax in more of a loveless kind of way than an accepting one. “No, the ‘big deal’ is that I wouldn’t _keep it quiet_. Wouldn’t keep all my unsavory escapades under lock and key, marry the girl, lie back and think of Tevinter. _That_ was my sin. My father couldn't have that. It would ruin his precious legacy. I was supposed to breed him a perfect grandchild. So he decided to--to… _fix_ me."

There, he was forced to pause. He cleared his throat, looking to the bottle and finding it distressingly low, the glass winking at him in the dim light. Blast it all. He wasn’t drunk yet.

Trevelyan’s eyes narrowed, fingers tightening on the fragile stem of his own wine glass. “Fix you how?”

“With blood magic.”

He didn’t explain. He didn’t want to go treading down that path again, remembering the circle on the floor he’d been forced to stand in, the blood that had flowed around him, the chanting that was drowned out by his own pulse and an ever-encroaching white noise that consumed his mind, until he could no longer even hear his own voice. Invasive, cruel fingers reaching for something that sat in the very heart of his being, and unraveling everything else first to get there.

Picking up on none of this, Trevelyan only asked, "Did it work?"

Dorian burst out laughing at that. He couldn’t help it. He hurt too much to stop. "Did it work, he asks! You mean would I jump at the chance to swim in your sheets? Have I been too subtle?”

"I—given our circumstances I didn’t know if I was to take you seriously," Trevelyan mumbled, clearly trying to avoid addressing the rising pink blush on his cheeks. “You did follow up your first round of flirting with an attempt to burn my face off.”

"Petty details." The levity faded, and Dorian finally answered, much more tiredly, "I have no idea if it was working the way he’d intended it to or not. My father lost his nerve, and partway through the ritual he ended it. But by then, the damage was done. I don’t remember what came next exactly. I woke up in my bed an entire day later. The door was unlocked and unguarded, perhaps because no one was expecting me to be awake. I slipped away in the night, barely able to string two sentences together. All I knew was I had to escape. I fled to the one person I thought I could be safe with in my addled, malleable state. The one person I truly trusted."

"Gereon Alexius."

Dorian grinned broadly, flashing him a wink. "That's the one."

Trevelyan looked down at the table with mute contemplation, face giving an odd twist. "…He saw an opportunity."

“I'm sure he thought he was putting me on a good path. Giving me ‘purpose’ or something. He was good at lying to himself like that. --Anyway, here we all are." He looked down, swallowed a bit of a choking in his throat. "Felix and Alexius are both dead, and I am a prisoner of the Inquisition. Though ‘prisoner’ might be stretching it now, granted. Odds are, I’m going to be murdered as a traitor by Corypheus when he comes down here to destroy you."

"I won't let that happen."

“It’s not really your decision,” Dorian sneered, a rise of spite blocking out the pain. “You haven’t seen what I have. There’s a reason those fools call him a god. You saw his _dragon_ , didn’t you?”

"Do you really think him so powerful?"

"Do you think I would have bought into all his talk about revitalizing Tevinter and reshaping the world if I didn’t think he was capable of whipping you about the courtyard by his pinky?”

Trevelyan tilted his head, eyes gleaming through the shadows falling on his face. “I think you bought his talk because you’d been subjected to blood magic.”

“—Don’t you do that, don’t talk like my father. I wasn’t some bloody thrall. It wasn’t like that.”

“Then how was it?”

He paused. Responsibility was a tricky, thorny thing. It would be so easy to say it wasn’t his fault. So easy to blame something else. But then what would he be? Some powerless victim, some worm unable to shape his own actions, his own morals. In the end, it didn’t matter how much or how little he could blame on the groggy twitching in his brain, the occasional blackout as he’d tried to right himself, the dismal confusion and despair of forgetting himself. “In the days after the ritual, Alexius would…would fill in gaps for me. Things I used to disagree with him on became shared opinions. Arguments I could have seen through in a heartbeat seemed rock solid. …I needed his certainty. My own beliefs had been broken, you see.”

Not just from magical tampering. It was hard to put stock in your morals after witnessing the man who taught them to you flagrantly casting them aside.

Dorian cleared his throat. He would not be his father. He would not make excuses. “But that stage only lasted so long. It relied on isolation, which he couldn’t maintain forever. The cocoon of ideology started to tear when I was introduced to other Venatori. I know he must not have seemed much in the state you found him, but Alexius was a brilliant man, and very charming when he was of a mind to be. You have no idea how _few_ of his compatriots I could say the same of. By the time I realized it was all empty promises for idiots with glory in their heads, I didn’t think playing the hero would help.”

Trevelyan cocked an eyebrow at him, a press to continue.

"What my…father did to me is the kind of thing that happens every day in Tevinter. No one thinks twice about it, at least not anyone who matters. You can’t be good. It just doesn’t work. And then, enter Corypheus, aspiring for godhood with the actual clout to back it up. I thought that…maybe there was room in it somewhere to use the power and influence he was amassing to…to beat some of those magisters into submission, clear away the corruption. That this ‘Vessel’ nonsense was a way to get a leg up on an otherwise untouchable enemy.” He chuckled bitterly, looking away. "And in so thinking, I helped a group that represented everything I hate the most about my people. I know I must seem a craven fool to you."

“No.”

The response was so sudden Dorian was convinced he must have misheard it. “What?”

The man set his glass aside, looking at the table. “I don’t think you’re a fool,” he said slowly. “I actually think very highly of you.”

“You think… _highly_ of me?”

Trevelyan suddenly laughed, sounding like a schoolboy. “You’re a noble man raised by vipers, Dorian. What isn’t to think highly of?”

Perhaps it was the drink, but he felt warm, and light, and his reply felt far too soft and weak. “Have you…been listening? Do you even hear the words that come out of your mouth?”

“I’m just giving you my honest impression.” Trevelyan’s grin was bright and unguarded, leaning in with his hands against the wood of the table. “It takes a lot of strength to change. You were shoved onto the wrong path by people you trusted, and yet now here you are, with us, still thinking about what the right answer might be. I find that so—so _admirable_.”

“ _Admirable!_ ” Dorian’s own cheeks were red as his voice filled with utter disbelief. “You do remember that I’ve tried to kill you, don’t you?”

It was as though threats to his life were no more consequential than getting a bee sting. He waved it off, shrugging. “We were on opposite sides.”

“So then it doesn’t matter?”

“I’d be perfectly furious with you if you tried to kill me _now_.” He gazed at Dorian, some of his exuberance fading back into something a little calmer. “But back then it was…expected. And you will note, I did reciprocate.”

“You did.”

“But even then, I didn’t get the feeling that you were someone—someone who _needed_ to be killed. More like someone…a little turned in the wrong direction. That’s all.” He waved his hand again, lips pulling back over his slightly sharp teeth. “I could hardly blame you for that. Maker knows I’ve set a fair share of fires in my day. For far less noble reasons.”

“Listen to you. The most holy man in Thedas calling himself less noble than me.” There was supposed to be some sarcasm in there, but it failed to come through. Faint pricklings of tears stung Dorian’s vision. He couldn’t understand it. Perhaps it was just the wine. Praise always made him weepy when he’d had a bit to drink. Praise and—and the look in the other man’s eye, those eyes that so comfortably carried about a predatory gleam instead gazing at him like he was the sole glittering gem amidst a pile of refuse.

Whatever that look was, it hurt. It was too much.

He wanted back in familiar territory.

Trying to be subtle, he wiped the edges of his eyes and stroked his mustache back into shape.” --You do know the people around here have started gossiping about us, don’t you?”

That curled some confusion into Trevelyan’s expression. Ah, so he didn’t know. “Gossiping about us?”

“Oh yes. With how often we wind up talking.” He couldn’t help a breathy laugh as Trevelyan’s brows pulled in somewhat. “Some of it’s fairly scandalous, actually.”

“Scandalous, hm?” He gave a low chuckle, briefly biting his lip. The predatory gleam had returned. “No one ever says them to me.”

“Well of course they wouldn’t. You’re the _Herald of Andraste._ They’re all terrified of you. I just happen to overhear things. Quite entertaining to listen to, too.”

The reply was a goading tease. “Well, don’t keep me in suspense, Dorian.”

“You would like an example?”

“I would.”

“As you wish,” he murmured, leaning in and kissing him.

The moment their lips touched, Dorian felt Trevelyan jump, and realized this might not be such familiar territory after all.

It was as though he had bypassed some illusion over him, cracked open a mask and saw the face underneath. All charm and control vanished in his surprise, leaving behind something not…vulnerable per se but stiff and artless. Unprepared. Perhaps no one had ever had the gall to steal a kiss from him. Dorian smiled cheekily against his mouth, feeling some of his spirits return.

Soon after, he heard a soft sigh slip from Trevelyan’s throat as he leaned in, meeting Dorian halfway. He seemed unsure of what to do with his hands, first bracing them on the surface of the wood and then hesitantly letting one rest feather-light on Dorian's bare shoulder. Dorian, on the other hand, immediately responded by grabbing for the back of Trevelyan's head to hold it in place as he eagerly pushed the kiss deeper, to taste the inside of his mouth and drink in the rest of the wine on his tongue. After one stuttering second he felt the more intense pace reciprocated, and gleefully so.

\--And then, all too soon, they broke apart.

Or rather, the fearsome Herald of Andraste suddenly retreated like a scared bunny rabbit.

Dorian couldn't resist leaning back in the chair and smirking, watching Trevelyan attempt to control his wild-eyed look by smoothing his hair down and straightening his clothes. He tsked. "I suppose it is a bit wicked of me to ambush you like that, but to be fair I _am_ a wicked man.”

“You—” Trevelyan touched his lips, and then realized he was doing so and quickly put his hand on the table. “I—we—You kissed me.”

“I did. And you kissed back. Didn’t you enjoy it?”

“But that wasn’t—” His face was turning red, a stammer quite unlike anything Dorian had heard from him thus far taking over his voice. “I mean I—I did, very much, yes. But that wasn’t…I-I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Well, if I waited for _you_ to do something we’d just be eternally staring at each other. Not that you’d be entirely unjustified in doing so. I am quite marvelous to look at.” He didn’t wait for a reply, standing with just the slightest hint of a wobble as he got out of his chair from weak knees. He leaned over the table and lightly tapped Trevelyan’s mouth with his index finger, causing him to startle again, though also, deliciously, lean forward slightly as though moving in for another kiss. “So reticent, for someone who’s had me at his mercy for so long, _eyeing me_ the way you do.”

“But we—that was just—we were—" Trevelyan looked up at him at that, expression rapidly cycling through alarm, desire, and then curious appraisal. He spoke slowly, holding back his stuttering. “…But we were something else, then.”

“And now?” Dorian experimentally ran a hand through his glossy hair, saw the way his eyelids flickered at the motion. A thousand new wonderings were beginning to bloom in his mind, but they mingled with the drink and the bitter memories this evening had resurfaced and grew a little sour.

“I…” He seemed to be struggling with his thoughts as Dorian lightly dragged his nails over his scalp. With some small reluctance he pulled his hand away.

“Careful. Don’t overthink it.” Dorian straightened, taking in a breath and speaking more brightly as Trevelyan seemed to come back to himself. “I think, as fun as this has been, that I’m going to go drink myself into a heap on the floor. It’s been that kind of evening. I’d offer for you to join me, but as much fun as I am after the second bottle, once I hit the fourth I tend to be much less pleasant company.”

“You’ll get a hangover,” the other man said, not an admonishment but a simple statement of fact.

He scoffed. “Yes, that is what typically follows a night of heavy drinking. Hence why we keep it restricted to emotional gut punches and particularly wild parties.”

Frowning, Trevelyan hastily pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket and scribbled something on the back. Then he handed it over. “Adan makes a remedy. Iron Bull had me drinking this …Qunari poison after we killed a dragon. This—got rid of most of the headache.”

Dorian gave the slip a little consideration before sliding it into his pocket and walking out the door. He could feel Trevelyan’s stare as he left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so—the next chapters will hopefully not be the monster that the Fade chapter was, but I have less of them concretely written. So, while I will hopefully be able to maintain my schedule, there might be some slipping coming up.


	12. Second Chances

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate your guys’ patience! I’m pretty sure I said this before, but sometimes I tend to get muse for later chapters of the story than the ones I’m actually working on posting, so this one took a little while despite having large chunks of it done because I was sort of writing more of the endgame. Which hopefully will save time in the long run, but still kept this one from being finished for a bit. The chapter immediately after is still under some pretty heavy construction too. Nonetheless, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also good God, I swear I’m not trying to make them as long as they end up being. Not that more reading content is necessarily a bad thing, I’m sure, but still. When I started on this fic I was honestly expecting to do 3000, 5000 word chapters max. There’s one up ahead I have finished that’s about that short, and I’m resisting the urge to pad it out and make it longer just so it fits.

A very long and drawn out conversation that bordered on argument had followed the morning after Magister Pavus visited Skyhold. The initial participants were Trevelyan and his advisors, though once he was done with them he had to speak with all the members of his inner circle.

That in itself would have been decently exhausting, but then his conversation with Sera led to another argument entirely.

“So, he goes out and kills people for Coryphe-shits, says he’s done and it’s all fine and dandy, but you can’t forgive what’s-his-name just for lying about where he comes from?”

“This is different.” Her taking issue with his idea was entirely expected. Bringing Rainier into the discussion was not, and he was having trouble keeping down the well of disgust that rose in his throat when thinking about the whole thing. “The two situations aren’t related at all. One of them has shown himself to be trustworthy—the other has done the opposite.”

“Bullshit. That’s you being hypo-hypoc—ugh, _words._ ” Sera ran a frustrated hand through her messy, uneven hair, and then said with a jab of her finger in his direction, “--Like the arsehole Chantry mothers with the sticks.”

Up until this point he had been doing a fine job of controlling himself, but when she said that he pulled back as though he’d been slapped. She might as well have slapped him. “You _take that back_.”

“Too late. Already said it.” To her credit there seemed to be some flash of guilt over her features at his reaction, but it was quickly swallowed by righteous anger. “It’s not about being a good person or fixing it or whatever, it’s about you don’t like him now. That’s what that is. You know, for someone smart you’re sure being friggin’ stupid.”

His lips twitched in a desperately contained snarl. Blood was rushing a little in his ears. “Look, are you going along or not? –Blackwall will be there, if that makes it better.”

“You lying about him doesn’t make anything better,” she scoffed. “Yeah, fine, I’ll go along. But just so you know, when we’re out there and I’m shooting arrows in some knob-end’s arse? That’s you. Me, shooting arrows in _your_ arse. Until you stop _being_ an arse. You get it?”

After that it was almost a blessing to listen to Cassandra lecture him on what a risky decision he was making.

His boots clomped a little as he made his way down the stairs to the Inquisition’s private library, the one visiting nobles weren’t allowed to see and nearly all of the servants were forbidden from entering. Trevelyan had spent a good week cleaning it up and reorganizing the books inside, which would have been a flagrant waste of Inquisition time if he hadn’t been recovering from a broken leg while he did it. He paused at the door, taking a moment to regain his composure and then strode on inside.

Dorian was down there, like always. He’d cleared off the chair that had been full of new, unsorted books and was quietly reading some large, dusty volume in it, idly twirling his mustache in a gesture so adorable it briefly took Trevelyan off guard.

Some of his frazzled morning evidently must have still lingered on his face, because Dorian’s first words of greeting were, “I don’t think you followed my advice, dear Inquisitor. You look like you hardly slept at all.”

The last few hours rolled back into his head. “No, I…just had to do a lot of talking this morning. I’m exhausted.”

“You? Get exhausted from talking?” Dorian laughed, neatly sliding a bookmark into the textbook and putting it away. “It feels like all we _do_ is talk.”

“That’s different. That’s me listening to you and asking questions. It’s _fun_ and doesn’t require any actual effort on my part.”

That earned him a more considered glance, and Trevelyan was suddenly nervous that he’d said too much. He was tracing through everything that had come out of his mouth trying to find what dangerous information he might have let slip, when Dorian spoke up suddenly, “So, to what do I owe the honor? Come to tell me your anxiously mulled over thoughts about last night?”

All other thoughts briefly exited his mind.

Dorian’s eyes were flirtatious, as they always were, but this time it felt different. This time he knew there was weight behind it, that it was not just a social gesture or jest, and it set butterflies free in his stomach. Trevelyan was glad for the gloves that masked the nervous sweat on his palms.

All that aside, Dorian was practically glowing, now that he gave him a good look. From the hangover potion, probably. His breath might have smelled of elfroot. His lips might have tasted of that delectable tangy mint….

He pressed a finger to his mouth as though a gesture of thought, when really he was recalling how Dorian’s lips had felt on his. Impulsive and tasting of sweet wine, pliant yet firm and demanding, mustache tickling his skin. It was the kind of sensation he would like to repeat over and over again until it had lost its hold on him, and then they could move on to other activities.

But in spite of himself he was still a Trevelyan, and part of being modest in temper was having self-control. If he didn’t have _that_ , what good was he?

“I want you to come with me. Out of Skyhold.”

That was clearly not the suggestion that the good mage had in mind, given the way his brows practically swept up to meet his hairline. “Out of Skyhold?”

“Yes. We have a little…problem—the problem being a Venatori officer that needs killing—and it just so happens we are out of battle-ready mages at the moment. Save for you.”

“Save for me.” Dorian didn’t look entirely pleased—it was hard to categorize that expression on his face, a fair bit of mistrust mixed into it, likely seeing some hidden test in the subject.

Well, there was a test. But Trevelyan wouldn’t consider it hidden or particularly hard to pass at this point.

It only took a few moments of consideration before Dorian said, “Just let me have breakfast first.”

 

There was, of course, the issue of Dorian’s magic being bound, but that was easily fixed by a short visit to Dagna while everyone else who was slated to come along got their packs in order. Trevelyan walked out into Skyhold’s yard where Dorian waited alone, carrying with him a small knife with runes inscribed on the hilt.

It was hard to see in the light of day, but the blade was glowing violet.

“Here we are,” he announced cheerfully. He hadn’t thought there was anything threatening in his posture as he approached, but he still saw Dorian’s slight shuffle away as he caught sight of the weapon in his hand.

“And that is for solving the issue of my magic, is it?”

“Yep.”

Well, maybe Trevelyan _had_ cut him before, but that was when they were enemies. If he wasn’t in such a good mood he might have been offended by the way he was eyeing the blade, like he expected it to suddenly stab into him without warning.

“Maybe I should be the one to—”

Trevelyan put his arm around Dorian’s shoulder and pulled him in. “Hold still.”

He felt him tense under his grip as the cool metal of the knife touched his skin. Ignoring him, Trevelyan neatly and quickly sliced the leather straps holding the band in place. The symbols inscribed on its surface fizzled and flashed briefly before it tumbled to the ground with a soft _clink._

_“_ Oh!” Dorian shuddered and groaned as his magic flooded back to him, languidly pulling himself from Trevelyan’s grasp. He brought up his hand, and the smell of ozone seeped back into the air as lightning jumped between his fingers. When he looked back, he was smiling—lighter than air, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “You have no idea how good that feels.”

Trevelyan flushed. “I have an inkling.”

Something in the sound of his voice must have betrayed him. Dorian turned properly, looked him up and down, and then traded in the innocent delight of a moment ago for a wolfish grin that made his knees briefly weaken. “Someday soon perhaps you will do me the pleasure of letting me show you.”

“I would like to have that clarification, yes.” His tongue felt clumsy but the words bounced off it well enough, and Dorian gave him another one of those genuine smiles.

It was not a good idea to be in a fawning mindset. It was so hard to get disentangled from it when business came. Dizzily, he struggled to push all thoughts of the two of them aside.

Just in time for the others.

Cassandra was first to the yard as always, her new armor clanking a little as she walked. She glared at them when they came into her sight, but said nothing. Trevelyan waved. Behind her trudged along Varric, who politely returned the gesture, eyes tired. He would feel bad, if he didn’t already know that the dwarf’s lack of sleep was a result of staying up writing from an inspiration burst and not the usual troubled insomnia that seemed to have plagued him as of late.

Sera took one look at Dorian standing there in the courtyard and shouted, “Aw, piss!”

Which was solely for Dorian’s benefit, of course.

"Such a warm welcome!" he crowed, folding his arms. "Almost makes me miss my old cell."

“Be nice,” Trevelyan warned, feeling the slight rumblings of frustration looming in his stomach again. “We talked about this, remember.”

His remonstration didn’t seem to have much effect other than making Sera quiet down, which was not what he wanted. It wasn’t good enough to get people he was close to to go along with something. They had to agree. The looks that Cassandra was giving the both of them were hard to stomach.

Even Varric seemed unsure, though he had the grace to be tactful about it. “So, no other mages coming along with us, then?”

“Vivienne is tending to one of our Orlesian connections. And Solas is…dealing with a personal matter.”

Varric lifted a brow. “I didn’t realize Chuckles _had_ personal matters.”

Burning curiosity had been eating away at him for hours after Solas had told him he had to leave and refused to divulge the details on why—Trevelyan certainly didn’t need a reminder from Varric. A bit more sarcasm than was deserved cut into his voice. “Evidently he didn’t just pop fully formed out of the Fade to aid the Inquisition. I’m as surprised as you.”

“I can tell.” The words were a little flat. It occurred to him that the last time Varric had seen Dorian was when they had all fallen into the Fade and Hawke had—“So, our only mage support is an unknown who previously attempted to kill us for Corypheus’ sake. That’s…great.”

Dorian cut in. “Think I’m liable to set you on fire, do you? Even after spending so long in your infirmary, and all this time gone without trying anything?” The words were flippant but there was an edge of offense in them.

“Okay, okay, Sparkler.” Trevelyan felt his spirits rise a little at the given nickname. Varric forced a placating smile. “All I mean is that we don’t really know how you are in combat. Except for his most Inquisitorial over here, who has some firsthand knowledge, I’m guessing.”

The two of them exchanged a look. Trevelyan smiled amiably. “Oh yes.”

Dorian turned now to Cassandra, lifting his tone. “What about you, Pentaghast? You’ve been silent this entire time. Has the Right Hand of the Divine anything to say about my accompanying your rag-tag band of misfits?”

True to form, her expression and tone were solid steel. It was almost twenty seconds before she replied, resting one hand on the pommel of her sword in its sheath, “I do not trust _you_. But I…trust the Inquisitor’s judgment.”

“Oh.” The declaration eased some of the tension in Dorian’s shoulders, around the same time as it caused a slightly nervous, warm feeling in Trevelyan’s stomach.

Trust.

For all they had moved past the bigger thorns in their relationship, it was the first time she’d actually said it outright.

There wasn’t much time to linger on the thought. She took a quick glance around then said sharply, professionally, “Let us get going. We still have a journey ahead of us. There will be time for talk later.”

“Get going? But not everyone’s here yet.” Sera turned to him, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “I thought you said Broody Beard was coming.”

Trevelyan’s insides jolted, mouth a thin line as he regarded her. No longer angry. His own anger had dissipated and so had hers, but she still wasn’t smiling. Disappointed? That somehow was more of an affront, somehow hurt worse. “I sent Blackwall up on ahead with some of our soldiers. We’ll meet up when we get there.”

Calling him Blackwall just seemed to make it worse, but what was he _supposed_ to call him? His name?

He brushed it aside with everything else.

Appearing to sense the tension in the air, Dorian coughed and asked, “So, who exactly are we pursuing in this? A former colleague of mine, I believe you said?”

“Gordian. One of the Freemen of the Dales who escaped from us at Emprise du Lion.”

Instantly his features lit up, and what a marvelous sight it was. “Really? Oh, this should be good fun. The man was impossible to work alongside—I would love the chance to spread his brain matter over the ground.”

Trevelyan smirked, moving to join Cassandra and the others as they headed for Skyhold’s gate. “Don’t look too enthused. He’s hiding in a bog.”

 

Fallow Mire was every bit as pleasant as it had been the last time they visited. Which was to say, not at all. Trevelyan actually rather liked the grim atmosphere and the aura of death and magic that permeated the place, but that didn’t mean he was fond of the wet and stink and corpses. Luckily for him at least he was wearing sturdier, and more importantly more water-proof, boots than the last time they’d come through.

True to form, Dorian was very displeased with their venue and made sure everyone knew about it. It didn’t bother Trevelyan—he recognized the complaints for what they were, a way to fend off discomfort and ground himself in this new situation. But they did little to endear him to their companions, it seemed. Or, Cassandra, at least, who advised him to shut up regularly.

That was the real problem, wasn’t it? That was the real purpose behind this excursion. Trevelyan was fairly confident that it would take only a two-man party to hunt one person, regardless of what undead he might have at his disposal. But he wanted Dorian’s firepower on their side, and that wouldn’t work without finding time to integrate him into this group.

Not to mention…he wanted their feelings to line up with his. He wanted them all to be in agreement.

He wanted them to like Dorian.

Because he liked him. Very much.

They were looking at it all wrong. Like Dorian was still their enemy only helping under duress. Why couldn’t they understand? The situation had changed. It was no longer prudent to look at him through that lens. Yet somehow they were stuck.

It didn’t help matters when Dorian admitted that he was the one who helped Gordian raise the dead at the Exalted Plains.

“Never against _noncombatants_ ,” he was arguing, his mustache drooping in a light, sprinkling rain as he spoke. “Look, I realize that all that rubbish I left behind was exactly that, but it wasn’t like I was winding up some zombies and then dumping them on Redcliffe or something. Those people were all soldiers.”

“Soldiers forced to fight for a war most of them had no stake in,” Cassandra countered.

“You want to know where we got the bodies? _Casualties of that war._ ”

“That’s enough.” Trevelyan hated having to be the one to break up arguments. He usually liked watching them. “We can argue when we’re not _busy_ , alright?”

Neither of them said anything further, which he supposed was in itself a reply.

The waters had risen since their last visit, leeching away at the available ground that there was to walk on. If it was just a matter of getting their feet wet it wouldn’t be that big a problem, but of course everyone present remembered what happened when anyone disturbed the water here.

Even Dorian, who had Varric to handily explain it to him.

They were getting a decent way towards camp when Trevelyan came to an abrupt halt, and his little entourage with him.

After fifteen seconds of silence Cassandra was the first one to speak up. “…Inquisitor?”

He held up his hand to shush her, tilting his head in another direction. His brow creased low over his eyes. “—Don’t you hear that?”

Whispering.

Familiar and strange, tickling at the faintest ranges of his hearing and tugging lightly on his hand as a parent might their child. It didn’t seem to have a source, not in a usual auditory sense. It did not respond to tilting of the head, seemed to effervesce in the air all around him, but it did respond to distance—a step in one direction and it grew fainter. A step in the other and it increased in volume.

The others, who were quite accustomed to Trevelyan bringing their travels to a grinding halt in this fashion, seemed a little put out but otherwise nonplussed. It was intensely amusing to turn back though and see Dorian looking at all of them like they’d suddenly lost their mental acuity.

Trevelyan wagged his brows at him, offering up a wide and manic grin.

Dorian sneered in reply.

His heart felt warm and fuzzy.

The noise seemed to be coming from an old wooden structure built up out of the bog, perhaps intended to be a footbridge in a time when the waters were much higher. Perhaps they would be up there again.

“Here.” He tested the structure briefly with his foot before climbing up. It wobbled.

He climbed anyway.

“Inquisitor, really.” Finally Cassandra seemed to lose patience, stepping forward. “There’s no need to imperil yourself. Whatever it is, we can pursue after we deal with—”

“Found it!”

Of course he’d been listening—he listened to everything--but with her in particular it was always fun to pretend that he wasn’t.

On the top of the platform was something that he’d missed their first time through the mire, likely because he didn’t yet know what he was looking for—one of the singing shards that Solas had suggested he collect, the ones that slotted so cleanly and prettily into the old Elven temple in the oasis. Now that he was right upon it, the noise it gave off was almost deafening. It was like someone lightly brushing a duster over his brain, repeatedly, making him want to burst out laughing or hideously break something. Or both.

He held up his prize, triumphant, and tossed it down to Varric so he could put it in that pouch Solas made to stifle the incessant singing whispers.

“Great,” Varric said once he’d stowed it away. “Another fine addition to our collection of weird shit. Can we keep going now?”

Trevelyan nodded, preparing to climb back down.

The moment his boot hit the boards again, the dismal, rotting wood gave way.

Nimbly, he darted from the platform to more stable footing as chunks fell into the still bog below, roiling the muck.

The moaning started.

A snarling grin cracked his expression as his pulse quickened.

Hands shot from the murky water towards him, towards all of them. Varric swore and stepped back, Cassandra swept her blade, already in position, Sera hissed and darted around the shoreline, and Dorian…oh, Dorian swung his staff with that lovely flourish, eyes all serious.

Trevelyan shot with his explosives, lingering as close as he dared so he could see the intricacies of how the bodies combusted, broiled, and shuddered back into death. In truth, this was the part of Fallow Mire he loved the most. The waves of moving targets to experiment on, to get creative with, without any judgment on the part of his fellows.

And goodness, was there a lot of them.

Accidental forays into the water didn’t have nearly the same response last time they were in the mire.

Corpses were funny—human beings and animals required precision to some extent, but once precision was applied they were hopelessly fragile. Slice an artery and they bled out. Damage the right organ and their combat efficacy was crippled. Give them enough pain in, say, their ankle, and they lost the ability to walk. But corpses? Corpses would walk on stumps. Corpses would walk towards him with their heads hanging on by a thread, still as vicious and malevolent as ever.

For the longest time he had thought for some reason that it was pure magic keeping them up. That a spell would animate them, pour into the body and give it purpose. He’d asked Dorian—the only necromancer in the Inquisition, really--if this was the case, and Dorian had laughed at him. _“What a load of magic that would waste!”_ , he’d chortled. No—they were full of spirits.

The spirits were hungry today.

“Three guesses as to who’s been riling up our dead friends here!” he shouted, firing an arrow right into a corpse’s eye and watching with glee as it continued to stagger his way.

Varric laughed tiredly. “Well, at least we know we’re in the right place!”

He’d had to learn, Trevelyan did. How to keep stock of allies in battles like this. It wasn’t something that came naturally to him, but now he rotated through his crew as though he’d been born leading small squads into enemy-infested territory.

Varric had prepped several poison flasks for their ultimate target, but given that the undead didn’t need to breathe he was forced to rely on trickier measures—traps and mines, particularly. He always kept a good distance away. There wasn’t a lot of need to worry on his behalf.

Sera was similar, keeping on dry land and effectively turning as many of the dead as she could into walking arrow pincushions. Then there was a burst as the necrotic gases in one ignited, and he realized that she had set them on fire as well.

Cassandra did as Cassandra does, which was to say that she had waded into the worst of them without hesitation, shining through the muck as she detached their upper bodies from their lower. The ones that might have pursued those of them hanging on the fringes were instead concentrated on her, which he showed his appreciation for by lopping off a few heads as he passed.

And Dorian…?

For once, Trevelyan found himself jarred from his bloodthirsty delight.

Obviously, the two of them had fought before. Only, it had been on opposite sides. So he’d been less focused on his wellbeing and more on besting him—looking for tells, weaknesses, places to injure.

Dorian was very grim, when he fought.

Which wouldn’t be a bad thing, if it didn’t feel like such a contradiction. Dorian liked to cast, he liked magic, he liked besting people just as much as Trevelyan did, and yet he approached this as though it was some heavy work to do, like even a misstep could spell his destruction. He wasn’t even looking at any of the others as he did.

Trevelyan was hopping towards him over stones and mossy patches of land when the rotting bear lurched out of the muck and swiped Dorian to the ground.

A spike that traveled all the way down to his toes lurched through him at the sight. And then the casual approach turned serious, boots splashing as he moved forward, one of his daggers drawn. The closer he got, the more he was assaulted with the sensory displeasures of the bear’s form—its maggot infested eyes, its rumbling, broken growl.

There had been only one bear here the last time they visited.

He looked, and there he saw it—a large, black blood crusted slash right in its neck.

One quick, squishy slice and the head was free. This, of course, did nothing to stop the bear from trying to kill them, paws waving through the air wildly and blindly. All it really did was remove the teeth, and make yet even worse the scents assailing his nostrils. Smells of the muddy bog mingled with the stench of rot and decay, mixed yet further still with…

…Ozone?

There was a crack, and once more, if only briefly, Trevelyan experienced the agony of having Dorian’s lightning coursing through his system. There was a splash as he fell. He could only watch, stunned, as Dorian burst from the water, covered in mud and pissed off. His staff twirled, kicking up even more water as he sliced through the air at the headless corpse that was still, somehow, trying to bite him without jaws to do so with.

With one glorious flare of fire, the bear’s body collapsed.

Then he turned and noticed the collateral damage of his earlier spell.

“You almost killed me,” Trevelyan said, a little put out. It wasn’t an accusation. Just a statement of fact. His legs were feeling a little too jelly-like to stand.

“I almost—” Realization dawned in his eyes, and then tense guilt. “Well—what were you doing in such close range!?” Dorian stooped to help him up, posture rigid. One hand he kept on his side where the bear’s blow had connected. “I could have seriously hurt you.”

“I was coming over to _help_ you.” Trevelyan shot back, rankling a little at the tone, as though it was his own fault. “So you didn’t get eaten by the _bear_.”

“That’s—I—” And the mage looked positively bewildered, like he couldn’t fathom why he would do that. And that did something to cool whatever anger the exchange had brought. “I wasn’t—expecting that.”

After at least a little deliberation Trevelyan roughly patted his shoulder, allowing a half-smirk. “No one ever expects me to do anything nice, I know.”

“You—”

“I’m actually pretty sure I already killed this one.” While Dorian continued to search for words, Trevelyan knelt down to inspect the bear’s maggot-eaten head. “Last time we were here, in fact. I suppose it wanted revenge.”

He glanced back up, smirking. Their eyes locked for a moment—just a moment. And then, slowly, Dorian let out a breath and said, “…I apologize. I wasn’t planning for anyone to—jump to my defense, as it were. I’m rather used to…well, working with people who don’t give a shit.”

“ _I_ don’t give a shit!” Sera called out. There was an intestine on her shoulder. “This place is bollocks, stop making googly eyes at each other so we can find this Orlesian git and go home.”

“Two things, for the record,” Dorian said quietly, looking over at Trevelyan. “I am perfectly capable of handling myself, so while I will…keep this group dynamic in mind, don’t go around thinking I need a nursemaid just because of this. Second—” This he addressed at Sera. “The Venatori we’re after, he’s not actually Orlesian.”

“What?” She frowned, one of those frustrated little snarls that made her nostrils flair. “Well then why does he wear the...” Accompanying the question with confused hand gestures approximating a sphere around her head. The hat.

“He was pretending to be. But he’s Tevinter, like the others.”

“Figures,” she snorted, stalking forward on the path after giving Dorian a short glare. “Seems to me like the whole world could use _less_ Tevinter shits mucking things up.”

They watched her go, before Trevelyan turned to Dorian and said simply, “It’s me she’s angry at.”

“Ah.”

It didn’t take them long after that to reach the forward camp.

After all this time, the accommodations had improved somewhat. Rather than a collection of dirty and tired soldiers guarding a sorry fire and patchwork tents, it was now a fortified defense point, crude walls surrounding a fire pit that was currently being rekindled by Inquisition mages and defended at its borders by repurposed Templar soldiers. A look-out station had been erected against the water, the Requisition’s table—absent its primary officer for the moment—strewn with paperwork at its base.

And there, waiting for them under one of the canopies that had been set up to shield against the weakening rainstorm, was a bedraggled, bearded man in Grey Warden armor that had seen such abuse in the past couple of weeks that it was impossible to tell under the muck that it was brand new.

It wouldn’t surprise him if the man had just dunked it in the bog and then let the corpses have a go at it before putting it on. It was exactly the kind of spite he had come to expect from him.

No matter. When they got back to Skyhold, Trevelyan would commission him even brighter, shinier armor. And maybe change his current shield for one with a big griffon on it, wings spread. That would teach him. He had lied. He didn’t get to duck that lie just because it reminded him of what a _bad man he was_.

It was hard to control himself, the real source of his ire too difficult to understand. He’d been lied to before. But usually he didn’t keep those people around. He didn’t have to see them all the time, didn’t have to hear their preaching on how _he_ was the worse person, how _he_ didn’t understand basic morality and atonement and _blah blah **BLAH.**_

Whatever the reason, it was unbearable.

Even looking at him, the dark set of his brow over his shadowed eyes, made his insides flood with choking, thick anger.

Trevelyan did what he had been trying not to do and grinned painfully wide, letting spite seep into his tone. “Warden Blackwall! Just the man I wanted to see!”

Rainier looked like he maybe wanted to spit in his direction, but instead grunted, “Inquisitor.”

He used to call him by his name. It had taken a while, but that had happened, eventually, and he’d felt so pleased by the implicit acceptance, so honored to be on friendly terms with a man who was so straightforwardly _good_ \--

Maybe if he tried he could tear off that stupid fucking beard and see what he _really_ looked like—

“Right, you two gonna be all weird about shite now?” Sera interjected, walking just subtly between them. Without waiting for an answer she turned completely to Rainier. “You look like you took a swim in the bog.”

He seemed to relax just the slightest, readjusting his helmet. “I very nearly did.”

Trevelyan withdrew, feeling stung once more and allowing them their conversation. He knew what he needed to do to get back in Sera’s good graces. But actually doing it was something else entirely, and it felt like a part of him was being held for ransom until he complied. He didn’t like it. It was too much of an “older sister” thing to do, and he’d had enough of _those_ to last a lifetime.

The ultimate decision after everyone (including a vaguely uncomfortable Dorian) had gotten some basic attention from the healers was to split up their group into two three-person teams to cover more ground. Locate their target as quickly as possible. Each of them were given a flare, a little bit of powder that flashed bright red once lit, to use once they found him or something that would get them on the right track.

Blackwall, Sera, and Varric to one. Dorian, Trevelyan, and Cassandra in the other.

Frankly he would have liked Varric to be on his team, just because Cassandra could be a real killjoy where anything involving magic was concerned, but then that would leave them without an indestructible, unstoppable force to carve through the inevitable waves of dead people crawling out of the water as they searched.

It got less fun the more it happened, graduating from boring to downright irritating as it impeded the search.

After about five times of this, Trevelyan looked around once the initial wave had been cleared and saw Dorian sprinting ahead of them, neatly vaulting over some rotted wooden scaffolding that lead to a higher position on some bluffs nearby and quickly vanishing from sight.

He shouldn’t, but he thought of him being swatted down by the bear.

His stomach became a coiled knot.

Almost on reflex, he gave chase.

He would worry for Cassandra, were she anyone else. But she was built like a battering ram—out of everyone he fought alongside she was the only one to never fall, not once, and it had become just an accepted part of his worldview that her armor, at least when it came to the undead, was impervious.

Nimbly, he scaled the splintered scaffolding up to the heightened slab of ground where Dorian had run, poking his head up just as the last of the bodies had fallen with a wet splat to the ground, smoking and twitching. Dorian turned to him with a cocky smirk on his face, twirling his staff with a bit of flare as though he expected applause.

Trevelyan felt spikes in his gut instead of admiration this time. “Stay where I can see you.”

That earned him a lifted brow, Dorian putting a hand on his hip as he righted his staff. “After all this time were you afraid I was going to make another escape attempt?”

“No.” He didn’t look injured. Even his robe was unruffled. Foolish, to think he would be. Embarrassing to get worked up. Trevelyan allowed himself to frown. “I thought you might get hurt again.”

“I…” There he was, looking shamed. That’s not the expression he wanted to see on his face. “Right. I forgot. You get some terrible habits when you’re part of an evil cult.”

“Well, you seem to have broken yourself of their habit of muttering enchantments in a creepy voice, so perhaps there is hope for you yet.” Then he winced. Trevelyan’s voice was a little harsher than he’d meant it to sound.

“Broken it as far as _you_ are aware.” Dorian coughed, before turning and walking through the gloom a bit further. “If it helps, the reason I ran ahead is because I know how to counter this particular kind of mass re-animation.”

He’d missed it before, almost hidden in the sludgy brown grass. But there, inscribed into the dirt, was a glowing sigil, greasy and sparkling. Every so often it would flare, little sparks of energy jumping over its intricate lines.

He wanted to stare, to admire it. But then, he also knew this was what Dorian was talking about. So he did not intervene when the mage carefully dismantled it.

“So…” he said after a moment, watching the light die. “No more corpses slowing us down?”

Dorian nodded. “Yes. Or…well, no more than is usual for this Maker-forsaken shithole.”

“No more than usual is fine. Perfect, even!” With that matter settled, Trevelyan turned, certain that Cassandra would be along any moment to berate them both the way she tended to do. He took a few steps towards the scaffolding before he realized that Dorian wasn’t following behind him.

“While we’re…talking alone,” he said, folding his arms and inclining his head just so. “I hope you don’t mind my asking—about the whole mess with Thom Rainier.”

His whole body stiffened. Dorian noticed.

“You’re not the only one who gets curious about morbid subjects.”

“You know the situation, don’t you? He said he was a Grey Warden and he wasn’t. But we’re pretending he is because if we tell people he’s not it will be _extremely_ inconvenient. It’s very simple.” It didn’t feel simple in the least but it could be if everyone just stopped wanting to talk about it.

Unfortunately, Dorian didn’t look convinced. “I don’t mean _that._ I quite understand a bit of…deception for politics. Distasteful as it is. No, I’m referring to _your_ particular problem with the man. Every time his name is mentioned you look like you’ve just swallowed a lemon whole. You somehow seem to get along with everyone in your circle except for him.”

Trevelyan rolled his eyes, moving to clean the mud off his bow. “He had a family with children murdered and then pretended to be a Grey Warden to hide from it while his men took the fall. Why should I get along with him?”

“ _Present company aside,_ Cole told me he was once a serial murderer who targeted abused and desperate mages. Yet you practically _adore_ the boy…spirit…thing.”

Trevelyan felt vaguely uncomfortable, a kind of itchy feeling in his chest. “Well that’s…different.” After a moment he added, pained by how much of an afterthought it was, “—And Cole didn’t lie about that to me.”

“But you see my point, don’t you? Your allies are practically brimming with skeletons in their closets. _Fasta vass_ , you have a bloody _Qunari_ on your side you go drinking and killing with.”

Trevelyan tried to laugh and it came out as a grunt. “Well, to be fair to me, I didn’t like Iron Bull at first either.”

Dorian persisted, a keen interest in his eyes that Trevelyan sometimes saw when he caught his reflection on Cassandra’s shield. “There’s also Madame de Fer. –Deception is the stock and trade of Orlais, after all. If you don’t like liars, why do you not detest her?”

This again he waved off, starting to grow just a touch irritated. “She doesn’t count. What she’s hiding isn’t cowardice. She’s trying to do something good in a snake pit.”

“There you go again. If you can look at the iron woman and see someone pushing for a noble purpose, why can you not do the same for Rainier?”

His lip curled disdainfully. “You sound like Sera _.”_

Dorian sputtered, blinking rapidly. “I sound like _Sera?_ ”

“It’s just because he hates nobles!” He hated the way that statement sounded as it came out, as though he knew it wasn’t true. “She thinks he’s the _bee’s knees_ because he hates them as much as she does. Like he’s some downtrodden Little Person instead of a Big Person who _fucked up.”_

“ _Or…_ ” came the reply, like some blighted voice of reason, “She likes him because he’s her friend.”

Hurt blossomed in his chest, and he turned on Dorian, even if it wasn’t really about him. “You like him too,” he accused.

The resounding bark of a laugh scattered his thoughts. “Oh, sweet Andraste, no. Don’t mistake my empathy for fondness. The man never _bathes_. No, I would rather he be as far away from my person as possible.”

“Then—"

“I just think you are much harder on him than the others, and while that perhaps is not _undeserved_ , I would be a hypocrite of the worst order if I were to condemn a man trying to atone for past transgressions.” Dorian spread his arms, as though gesturing to the whole of himself. “If one cannot be good after doing bad deeds then I may as well give up now.”

It was a valid point—a damnably valid point, one that he couldn’t really argue against. But it didn’t solve the issue. The wetness in his lungs was still unresolved, the tightness in his chest, which it should, if they’d worked through it. So he rooted around for more, finally offered up, “I don’t care if he’s a good man or not. It’s not like with you. I care about—about the consistency.”

“ _Consistency?_ ”

He knew he’d picked the wrong word. He was growing flustered, searching for a better way to explain it and speaking more rapidly. “The thing he did, the way he regrets it, the way he pities himself for it. As though he didn’t know what he was doing at the time.”

“Have you never done anything you regretted? Anything you wish you’d done differently? Things you’d have rather hidden from?”

His mind flashed with fur sticking to his hands with blood, tattling on _Evie who has magic and won’t help me_ , the first time he told someone he loved them, Varric asking him _Where's Hawke?_ , “You don’t get it. It’s—this was deliberate on his part, it wasn’t some accident, or him not realizing the consequences of his actions.”

That earned him a pointed look. “Oh yes. _I_ wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Don’t compare yourself to him!” His voice cracked. Just a little. Just from all the shouting he’d been doing this day. “Your situations are entirely different!”

Dorian made an exasperated noise. “How is it different?”

“Because _I wanted him to be something else!_ ”

The volume of his voice was so high that the sentence echoed back to him slightly in the gloom. He hadn’t meant that, hadn’t tried to get so angry. Anger was a lack of control, and he had to have self-control. But he realized, in this moment, like he had none.

Finally the words came tumbling out. “I know what I should have done. I should have sent him away. I should have respected his choice to die or—or given him to the wardens to still make use out of him. But I was so angry. You can’t imagine what it was like, seeing a man I—seeing a man like him sniveling in his cell because he felt _bad_ that he did something wrong. To see how _weak_ he was.” He snorted, started to walk in a tight path just to get rid of some of his energy, hands clutching at nothing. “If you’re going to do something horrible, and you know it’s horrible—then you do it, and you don’t get to be sorry about it. If you want to save the dog, you _go do it_. You don’t watch it die then gripe about what a coward you were.”

The look that had entered Dorian’s expression seemed some mix between bemusement and concern, folding his arms again as he watched him pace. “…You’ve lost me.”

Trevelyan sighed pinching the bridge of his nose. It didn’t help the growing headache. “I’m not—as clear when I’m having… _emotions_.” He couldn’t help spitting the word in disgust. Yet another reason to hate Rainier. After a breath or two he was settled enough to continue. “I made him pretend because I wanted Blackwall back. And I wanted to _hurt_ Rainier for taking him from me. And I know I shouldn’t have because _Sera_ won’t let me forget.”

If Dorian would only interrupt him, he could stop talking. But he didn’t, and so the awful deluge of words continued.

Next he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes. The pressure there seemed to relieve the pain a little. “She thinks he’s the same person but I don’t know him. But he knows _me_ and he knows what I _am_ and he _hates it_. I saved his life, I made it so he could do more good than he could ever accomplish swinging from a noose, and he tells me I’m a corrupt tyrant.”

What expression Dorian was making right then, he didn’t know, eyes still covered. The words he’d said—it felt good to say them. Like relieving a building pressure in his chest, allowing himself to calm. But saying them in front of someone—saying them in front of someone he wanted to like him. That felt unwise. That made him nervous. And in the absence of rage, the nervousness flooded in.

He just liked people to be one thing or the other.

That’s all it was.

The sound of Dorian’s footsteps on the ground snapped him to himself somewhat. Dorian’s arms were still folded but it was a loose gesture, not closed off. When he spoke, his voice was carefully measured and calm. “It’s…very difficult to look up to someone and then find out they’re not who you thought they were.”

All he could work up as a reply was a bitter mutter. “It’s his fault for thinking I’m some bloody Herald.”

“I meant both of you.”

Trevelyan opened his mouth to object. He closed it again. And then stammered out, “Yes.”

“Even worse,” Dorian continued, giving a light touch to smooth back some hair that ended in a hesitant trailing of his fingers over Trevelyan’s cheek. “when that person has contempt for who you are, wanting you to be different.”

He closed his eyes, feeling the ugly turmoil rising in his stomach again before it settled. “…Yes.”

Dorian withdrew his hand, looking a little more thoughtful. “You said he is a stranger to you, yes? …Perhaps the solution then is to disabuse yourself of the man you thought he was. View him instead as a separate person. Figure out later which parts of Blackwall were lies or not.”

A reasonable suggestion. More easily considered than carried out.

“Or,” he said more sharply when Trevelyan didn’t reply right away, eyes brighter, “You can continue sniping at each other to the detriment of your bizarre friendship with the crude, loud-mouthed elf. Don’t think I don’t enjoy watching the drama.”

Without meaning to he snorted, looking down at his feet and trying not to smirk. It was unfair of him, to do that. To jump between serious and sarcastic so easily. It was hard to keep up.

Eventually he relented. “…I’ll think about it.”

Dorian smiled as though he had done him some boon, and the rest of the negativity inside him leeched away.

Just in time for Cassandra to come slicing through the bog towards them. “I have found something.”

“I did think it was taking a while for you to catch up,” Trevelyan mused.

She narrowed her eyes at his comment, but reported, always the dependable one, “There is a house nearby, a simple disguise veil that I was able to disrupt keeping it hidden from travelers in the area. I believe this is where he has been staying. The back door opens to a path through the marsh. –Come. I will show you.”

The building Cassandra led them to only barely fulfilled the qualifiers to be called a house, a shambling one story hut with a single window and a door that was so busted up that there wasn’t even any point in locking it. Trevelyan had her kick that door in, something she’d taken to a little spiritedly despite rolling her eyes first.

The inside was as neat and orderly as it could be, even somewhat cleaned up. Very obviously being lived in. There was a simple cot in the corner, an extinguished fireplace, and a table full of various odd implements and half-eaten food.

“Homey. For a given definition of ‘home’,” Dorian noted as Trevelyan found and skimmed a diary full of maniacal and vengeful ramblings in an increasingly shakey penmanship.

Just as Cassandra told them, the back door led to a path, a waterlogged land strip to what was probably some sort of closed off ritual area. He burned to run immediately, but surprising their quarry in the middle of a ritual probably wasn’t a good idea when his team was split in half.

He walked outside, tied the bag of flare powder to an arrow, lit the fuse, and let it fly into the air.

It was marvelously bright.

 

When the rest of them had caught up, they set off through the swampy grove path, ducking under bowed and drowned trees. It was fairly long—Trevelyan had some dim recollection of killing some mage through here before, a man trying to control some big demon if he was remembering correctly. Behind him he could hear them discussing Gordian.

“You should have seen some of the accounts we found in the Graves,” Varric was saying to Dorian, glancing over the diary.  “Made this guy sound almost like a saint. Listening to people, helping out the ‘wayward and less fortunate’, what have you.”

“Well that’s rather how one does it, don’t you think?” Dorian had read the accounts and laughed, obviously not surprised by any of the ramblings within. “‘By Andraste’s flaming knickers, killing your fellow countrymen over a family squabble isn’t all that fun, is it old chap?’ ‘Why no, how astonishing to have someone who grasps that!’. ‘Perhaps we should refuse to go along with their wishes! Let Celene and Gaspard duke it out in a pit of mud or something.’, ‘Why yes, what a splendid idea!’. Which is all well and good, but then the next thing you know you’re performing blood sacrifices, raising the dead, selling people into slavery, and trying to claim the entire Dales for yourself like cretins.”

“Then you get run through by the Inquisitor,” Varric added. Trevelyan heard more laughter behind him.

“Oh yes. Can’t forget that. Most important part.”

“While we’re on the subject Sparkler, you seem awfully carefree about what we’re here to do. You did work with this guy. You’re alright helping us kill him?”

Dorian gave a beleaguered sigh.

“Let me put it this way,” he began, jerking a thumb Cassandra’s direction as she pushed on stalwart by their side. “Your seeker has not stopped glaring daggers at me since we started out on this little field trip, and I still trust her at my back more than any of the Venatori I worked with.”

Cassandra’s brow lifted for just a moment at that, hard eyes softening in surprise, before she returned to her practiced scowl.

Varric persisted, though there was now a chuckle in his voice. “So…that’s it then, there’s no lingering animosity here regarding all of your underlings we killed?”

Dorian blinked, coming to a stop and resting his hands on his hips as he spoke to Varric. "Make no mistake about my feelings, dwarf. My compatriots were idiots who deserved to have their heads pop off their shoulders. I’m only sorry I didn’t help sooner.”

They reached a clearing, hemmed in by rock and water and one particularly tall, gnarled tree with only half its leaves. Standing in the center was Gordian, murmuring to himself and surrounded by light that seemed to loop around him like cords, blood trickling from a cut palm.

“Case in point.”

Obviously, six people weren’t going to be able to hide their approach, and their target sat up quickly, a resigned stiffness in his stance that suggested they were not entirely unexpected.

He was still wearing the stark white outfit he’d taken for himself in the Exalted Plains, only now it was so filthy with mud, blood, and bog stink that it was almost unrecognizable. His puffed up hat had flopped partially over his brow, stubble thick on his chin without having the dignity of being a full beard. His mask was gone, exposing significant scarring over his face from their last encounter.

“Gordian!” Dorian greeted jovially, hands on his hips. “Good to see you, my fellow countryman! You look like something a dracolisk burped up.”

Gordian narrowed his eyes—or rather, eye, considering he was now missing an eyelid—at Dorian, lip twisting in disgust. “Pavus. You always were a soft touch. Figures you’d be here now with these Inquisition dogs.”

“You should be careful the insults you sling around. Dogs are very highly prized in Fereldan.”

“ _Fereldan can burn._ ”

“Gordian let’s be reasonable!” Trevelyan cut in, holding his arms out broadly in a gesture of what he hoped looked to be compassion. “Your allies are gone. You’ve been living in a bog for at least a month now, probably. You’re missing parts of your face. And you’re outnumbered five to one. Surrender and the worst we’ll do is lock you in a stockades and throw fruit at you. Maybe.”

The reply they received was pitifully spitting in their general direction.

Trevelyan was still smiling. “Well. I tried!”

And then the battle begun. Light flared from Gordian’s staff as he started to cast, as they ran for him. He was mumbling to himself. At first, it had seemed like simple spell phrases. The almost ritualistic muttering that had seemed so commonplace amongst the Venatori, with books at their hips like Dorian always had. But then he found that with some careful listening he could actually hear words.

Or, well. One word. Repeatedly.

“ _Outnumbered? Outnumbered. Outnumbered… **Outnumbered**!”_

He should have felt it. Should have known that this would happen, that the fabric of reality was weak here. Spitting green light lanced through the sky as a hole into the Fade opened, shooting pain up his arm that landed comfortable in his shoulder.

Gordian had found himself a rift.

They split into what had become a routine battle formation by now. Cassandra driving back twisting Rage demons and cackling monstrosities of Pride, Blackwall defending Sera and Varric from encroaching giant spiders, terrors, and wraiths, and Trevelyan picking off anything he could kill with a well-placed arrow, a maneuvered strike with his knife, whittling down their numbers. And Dorian had focused his attention on their Venatori target, a newfound vicious excitement transforming his lovely features into something that made Trevelyan dizzy with want.

Every spell that was sent his way, he countered. It wasn’t just combat magic that Dorian had at his disposal—he displayed a keen knowledge of dismantling other mages, at predicting where Gordian would go next and blocking him off. It seemed the only benefit Gordian himself actually had at his disposal was being able to resist Dorian’s terror magic, but it was clear he was waning. Soon he wouldn’t have anything left to guard with.

And then, mana depleted, Gordian cheated and thwacked Dorian with the blunt end of his staff.

This time Dorian did not crumple from the blow, though he did land on his knees, hastily putting up a barrier for the continued physical assault that Gordian attempted after it. He swung like a mad man, a petulant child throwing a tantrum now that he knew his number was up.

This time Trevelyan did not come running. This time he simply notched back an arrow and let it fly right into the man’s stomach. Then he crossed the small land path to him in a casual, quick stride, reaching for the shaft and pulling it free with one quick yank and a spray of blood. Gordian screamed in pain and fell, and then, snarling, Trevelyan shoved his face into the murky water and kept it there until he went limp.

He didn’t get up again.

The danger wasn’t over, however. The lasting spells and sigils that Gordian had enacted lost their focus and winked out of existence, but the demons that had poured out of the rift at his behest were still very much present.

A despair demon lunging for Cassandra nearly cracked through her defenses before it burst into flame, howling as it was reduced to nothing.

That was enough. He could feel his palm reacting to the hole in the air, reaching out to extend his will. In his mind’s eye he did as Solas had carefully instructed and visualized not the stitching together of fabric, but rather the push and pull of the tides. _“It’s simple, and keeping the image simple—in theory—makes it easier,”_ he’d said. _“Instead of mending something, imagine more that you are pushing the Void away, and pulling the Veil back over where it’s poked through. –Can you feel it?”_

Frustration had made him spit and growl through some of the training, but when he’d _succeeded_ —he’d been so happy. Solas had given him a rare compliment on how quickly he learned, offering that enigmatic smile of his. It hurt so much less, too—the way he’d fumbled before, throwing around the Anchor’s light as though trying to patch a dam, it always left him feeling drained. This was elegant. This was like letting something else do the work for him. And it was this he tapped into now, the green light dripping demonic ichor as it grew smaller and smaller, until finally it was no more.

So intent was he on closing the rift with the Anchor that he failed to notice a lingering Greater Terror crawling up through the ground at his feet.

Before he could even think about dodging there it was, a woosh and charge in the air the only warning he got. It snagged at his arm as it drew up, forcing him to stumble back as he heard fabric tear. He reached for a knife but his hands felt clumsy, tried to leap back but his feet were fumbling from the shock. In a display of utter clumsiness that had him mentally screaming at himself he tumbled to the ground, looking up to see gangly limbs, long winding tail, and dripping jaws with—was that a second set of teeth inside the first?

Right before it could kill him, Thom Rainier slammed into it with his shield, knocking it towards Cassandra who quickly cut it down, her sword shining with what was probably firelight but at the time seemed like holy light.

He sat there on the cold, muddy ground for a moment, looking up at a man who was easily disguised with a thick beard and Grey Warden armor. And then he leaned down to help Trevelyan up, a curious frown on his face.

Was that concern in his eyes? Was that regret for being a snap second too slow? Was there something in there that was worth trying to appeal to?

“Thank you…Thom,” he tried. The words felt acrid and thick in his mouth. It was the first time he had actually addressed him by his real name.

Rainier narrowed his eyes at him for a moment. Then he turned away. When he spoke, his voice still rang with its usual contempt. “Think nothing of it, Inquisitor. It’s not like I had a _choice_ in the matter.”

Trevelyan felt that irrational anger begin to boil in him once more, but before he could get out anything more cutting than, “You spiteful old—“, Sera grabbed his hand.

“Quizzy, your arm is bleeding.”

“What? Oh…” His emotions rushed free again, leaving him empty and only faintly surprised when he looked down and saw the fabric of his left sleeve starting to soak with dark red. That was a little alarming. It wasn’t doing that earlier.

“Here, take off your glove.” Cassandra reached for his arm. He jerked it away. “…Let us see how bad it is.”

“Mmm. No.”

She furrowed her brow at him, that unamused glare that he’d grown so fond of. There was some muck in her hair, and a little bit of a scrape on her forehead, but _she_ was otherwise undamaged. “Inquisitor, please. Now is not the time.”

“I hardly think—” Just barely did he manage to dodge another swipe of her hand, practically dancing out of reach of her fingers. His blood was warm on his skin as it saturated his sleeve. “—I hardly think peeling fabric off the wound will make it better! Let’s just—get back to camp and they can deal with it there, yes?”

He could tell she was running out of patience, and the others were giving him _looks_ that made his insides curdle. Mercifully, Dorian distracted their attention, jabbing into the bog with his staff as though looking for something. In all the chaos, Gordian’s body must have slipped into the water. “It really is such a pity. I always thought that most of the Venatori assignments were a bit of a waste. Gordian was as rotten as they come, but he was quite excellent at barrier spells. The things he could have assisted with…There was a lot of infrastructural potential there.”

Sera wrinkled her nose. "Is that one of the things you talked about while you were taking tea with Coryphe-bits?"

“Taking tea with— _Yes_ , infrastructure and the education system. Long hours of arguing over that.”

They were leaving. He probably shouldn’t be standing around in a stupor, they might find that odd. Trevelyan turned to follow. He stumbled, but found his footing again after a moment. He was just tired.

Varric laughed. “I can just picture it. ‘Oh yes, venerable Elder One, two lumps of sugar please.”

Voice full of disgust, Dorian snorted and put away his staff. “Don’t be daft. I don’t take my tea with _sugar_. I take it with brandy. _Lots_ of brandy. It’s the only way Corypheus’ long, boring speeches on his godhood are at least somewhat tolerable. At least until they bring in the tiny cakes and he gets distracted.”

He heard Sera speak up in the back. “…What, really?”

Trevelyan’s ears twitched. He loved tiny cakes.

Maybe he should sit down and have tea with Corypheus and then steal all the tiny cakes.

 

In the end, Cassandra was stuck having to hold him up when the blood loss started to get a little bit dizzying, cursing him and his “stubborn ass” the entire rest of the way to camp.

The potion they had him drink to get him at least some semblance of functional did not taste like elfroot, and they had to force him to drink it after he initially spat it up, coughing and complaining of the flavor. That, added with a little rest, took care of most of his problems.

The slash on his arm was just a touch too severe for their field healers to wrap up as neatly as other injuries. They made sure it wasn’t going to bleed further, accelerated the healing, and then gave him a rag to bite down on as they applied their ghastly stitches. His anchor twitching from the rift all the while. As they worked he clasped his right hand over his left to cover it from view, and then when they’d finished cleaning and dressing the wound he slipped a clean glove back over it.

The others were less injured, embarrassingly enough. Sera had somehow managed to come out of that almost entirely unharmed except for a new chunk of her hair missing. Varric was a little more banged up on one of his arms—a corpse had tried to bite him, and though they’d failed to breach his sleeve they had very nearly pulled his shoulder out of its socket. Cassandra was as ever, though small cuts littered her skin and the exposed fabric sections of her armor, places that were carefully cleaned and bandaged. Rainier—well, he didn’t give a shit about Rainier, but he did have to note that he seemed to have sprained an ankle, which would have to be seen to given it could bog down the return trip.

Dorian had a large bruise over the right side of his face where Gordian had hit him with the staff, waving off one particularly insistent mage healer who wanted to help alleviate it. “I’m _fine,_ focus on _them_ first.”

He didn’t know if maybe there was an unspoken note where “them” meant “Trevelyan”, but that was where his eyes wandered.

Mission complete, they embarked on the journey back to Skyhold. It felt significantly calmer than the journey to the mire, perhaps because they’d succeeded in catching their prey or perhaps because things didn’t lapse into stony silence when Dorian tried to enter the conversation. …Even if Sera did prey on his sleeping roll with bugs and garden snakes when she could find them.

Rainier still said nothing to him. That was fine. There was nothing to say.

On the plus side, there was a short period one evening soon after they started, before they’d gotten to the chill of the Frostbacks, where Trevelyan and Dorian were able to talk alone.

They’d run a little short on rations for the night and he’d offered to go hunting. A task which normally he could handle perfectly fine on his own, but given his arm was still recovering holding the bow was a little tricky. Hence, Dorian accompanying.

Dorian was not the best choice to select when it came to hunting.

He’d asked him to come along anyway.

“Funny, the last time I went out into the woods with the express purpose of killing and butchering an animal for food like some barbarian, it was the servants who did all the work. Father and I were more accompanying for the sport.” Dorian gazed around at the forest with the same sort of measured disdain that he reserved for most things outdoors, though it softened when he turned his attention to Trevelyan.

Trevelyan merely narrowed his eyes. “You’re…making that up.”

“Ha! Maybe I am.” He cleared some of the underbrush out of the way with his staff, not minding the dirt that had started to stain the bottom edges of his robe. ”My father would _never_ go into the wilderness if he had a choice in the matter.”

“You on the other hand are clearly out here right now. And mostly of your own free will, at that!”

“Mostly. All things considered I think I’m fairing fairly well.”

He continued through the dense path, watching a pulled back branch snap back towards his outstretched arms. “Oh yes. You’re quite rough and tumble.”

“Don’t make fun.”

“I’d love to see you punch someone.”

Dorian laughed. They were probably scaring the animals away—in fact, Trevelyan knew they were—but he didn’t care. “I’m sure I’d make quite a sight. –Barroom brawls in Tevinter tend to be a fair bit more interesting than those down here. But pugilism in particular is overrated, I’d say. Tends to mess up your knuckles.”

Trevelyan blinked and flexed his fingers. “Ah.”

“No,” he continued, “No one would ever accuse me of being an outdoorsman. But there is some allure in…testing one’s boundaries.”

The back of his neck and his ears grew hot. He glanced over at Dorian, who was wearing an air of fake casualty that was at odds with the very clear tone that had accompanied his words. Was there a tone in that, a note of anything being hinted at? Perhaps he’d misinterpreted.

Instead of replying he pushed onward, turning his attention back to their purpose for being there. “The tracks lead here,” he said when he was sure his voice was clear.

“Lead away, fearless Inquisitor. I enjoy the view back here.”

There was very little misinterpreting that. He could feel a slight prickling along his neck and shoulders. The feeling he always got when he knew he was being watched. The sensation that eclipsed most everything else, the one that made him almost forget what it was they were ever doing here together.

\--The animal, the thing he was hunting, yes.

Shaking his head lightly, he braced his hands on a nearby stump as he crouched to look into the grass, wood that had been petrified long before, probably from—from a lightning storm.

He heard and felt breath on his ear before the words came, a low murmur of, “Do you have any idea what a lovely picture you make, so focused?”

Hearing his voice, right there, so close, sent another unbidden jolt through him, probably the hundredth that Dorian was personally responsible for since they’d met. He whirled around so that he no longer had his back to him, which at the time had seemed like a good plan, until he caught the look in Dorian’s eyes as he closed the distance between them.

This was not the first time they had been alone together. But it was the first time they’d had nothing in the way. No enemies left to kill, no business left to do, no tables to be on opposite sides of or emotionally compromising meetings. Just the two of them, and the foliage that kept them from prying eyes.

Anchor beginning to twitch again, a broad and uncontrollable grin spread over his face.

“I don’t think you’re taking this wilderness exercise very seriously,” he accused, taking a step back.

“Oh I suppose you’re right,” Dorian purred, continuing his advance. His expression was smooth and calm, not the nervous showing of teeth that Trevelyan was currently struggling to stifle. “I confess I’m accustomed to a very different kind of game, one I like much better.”

It was not the first time they’d been alone together, but it was the first time since that night in Skyhold, since Dorian made it clear that he was ready and willing to act on the many unfulfilled promises and implications between the two of them. He continued to back up until he bumped into a tree, and there he stood as they were suddenly a breath apart, anticipation eating him alive. 

This time, when Dorian hooked his chin with his index finger and pulled him in for a kiss, Trevelyan at least saw it coming.

His spine tingled at the contact, his insides feeling light and fluttery as he kissed back. There was nothing desperate or particularly hungry about it, this time. The press of their lips was unhurried and relaxed, despite the fading twilight that surrounded them. But he was, however, assailed with the undeniable feeling that he was entirely at the other man’s mercy, having to lean against the tree for support.

Again he was at a loss as to what to do with his hands. Touching him seemed too dangerous, but pulling them away seemed too impersonal. They lingered there in the air for a moment, until to his surprised relief, Dorian grabbed them. He could feel the warmth of his hands through the gloves, anchor pulsing up his wounded arm in a pleasant ache. He whimpered, one inescapable noise, and Dorian mercilessly kissed him harder. The two of them fell under a little more.

He tried to separate from the enjoyable helplessness with paranoid thoughts, the kind of things his companions would say and he brush aside. Such as, if Dorian was _not_ on his side—if this really had been all a trick—this would be an excellent opportunity for him to kill him. Or wound him. No one was expecting them back right away. No one was there to see anything that might happen. It would be very easy for him to just burn their beloved Inquisitor to a crisp right there, or stop his pounding heart with one carefully concentrated blast.

Alarmingly, that thought was more exciting than daunting.

Dorian was the one to pull away first, laughing ruefully and rubbing his cheekbone. The spell cracked, and some of the strength returned to Trevelyan’s legs. He still wanted more. “ _Vishante kaffas,_ if Gordian’s corpse hadn’t fallen into the bog I would raise him just to kill him a second time. There should be special penalties for going after my face.”

The bruise was a vivid, lovely purple now. Trevelyan swallowed and gingerly reached to touch it, pulling his fingers back before they made contact. “I think it sets off your eyes.”

“It…sets off my eyes?” For a terrifying moment Dorian seemed unsure of how to process that, before he broke into a pleased, dark smile. “But of course. Everything about me is attractive, after all. Even my injuries.”

“Even your injuries.” After a moment of course he had to add, palms sweating again in sudden alarm, “Not—not that I would cause you injury just to see what it—what it looks like.”

The wicked look returned to Dorian’s expression, pressing him back against the tree once more with just a few fingers on his chest. “You’d hardly be the first to tell me that I look good with bruises. Though those were…given far less painfully, in more intimate places.”

The assertion caught him oddly, and then he was stuck fighting the impulse to try and act out the vivid image Dorian was giving him.

But then, why did he feel the need to fight it?

He was no virgin. Granted, out of all of his interests, sex and any related activities tended to rank lower than most things that didn’t require human interaction, but it was still high enough that he had a decent amount of experience under his belt, even if it was less so with men. And yet, he knew it was different, with Dorian. He knew it, had already witnessed it, and didn’t know how to account for it. Didn’t know what he should be looking for. Just that it would be there. Just that he would be crossing some threshold that he couldn’t back out from.

And that in itself wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t terrified that it would ruin what they already had. If he wasn’t afraid of trying to offer his heart only to discover there was nothing to give. Hurting someone on purpose was some of the best fun one could have. Hurting them on accident? There could be nothing more horrifying.

Upon realizing that he’d been staring at Dorian’s bared neck for the past ten seconds, he opened his mouth to speak.

“I—”

A twig cracked near them, and Trevelyan whipped his head around.

Prey.

He threw his knife. There was a loud squeal from the underbrush, and then the thud of something collapsing. Dorian was surprised enough to release his hold, and Trevelyan slipped by to see what it was exactly that he’d caught.

Just a simple nug. But one of the larger, brown varieties, which meant that it should have a decent amount of meat on it. Enough until they got to the next town the following evening, at least, if they were careful. His knife throw hadn’t killed it, however. The nug was crippled, laying on its side with the knife sticking out of its back at an almost parallel angle. Perhaps he’d severed something in its spine. He frowned lightly, pulling his knife free and then using it to quickly slice open an artery at the beast’s neck to finish the job.

Behind him, he heard, a sigh, and then, “You’re so very talented at killing things, Inquisitor. Animals. People. Moments.”

He glanced back, showing teeth again. All nerves forgotten. “That last one I learned with hardly any practice at all.”

“You know, that’s not something one is usually proud of.” Dorian had relaxed back into the confident lean against the tree that just a minute ago they’d been making out against. He did seem to flinch a little when the skinning and gutting and fileting began, though to his credit he only seemed the slightest bit nauseous when it was over. He didn’t offer to help, but that was fine. It was Trevelyan’s turn to show off.

He did clear his throat while the meat was getting packaged up. “—One more thing, before we return to camp. Perhaps I should have said this earlier, but I had…other things on my mind.”

Trevelyan did not stop in his task but he did look up expectantly.

“I would just…like to thank you for this opportunity.”

He frowned, pausing. “To…watch me skin and butcher this animal?”

Dorian wiped a hand over his face, and Trevelyan had to hold back his snickers. “Yes, to watch you skin and butcher this animal. You know, my wilderness experience just wasn’t complete until I answered the question of where nug-gets come from. Truly, I am blessed.”

Trevelyan pointed his knife at him, cocking an eyebrow. “You laugh at me now, but once you’ve spent enough time traveling with us like this you will be _begging_ me to teach you how.”

“Hardly. I’ll just bat my eyes at you to do it.”

He slapped a hand to his chest as though wounded. “You must think me so easily manipulated.”

The smirk that came over Dorian’s face was an answer in itself.

As they walked back, meat in hand and darkness finally falling over the woods and slowing their progress, he heard, “…In all seriousness, though. I know this might not seem like much to you, but it means the world to me.”

The warmth that came to his face felt scorching. “I’ve only given you what you deserve, Dorian. –I like you too much to do otherwise.”

“Ah.” Dorian let out a soft chuckle.. “Well, fortunately for me I am very likable.”

There was a tone of reciprocity in it. Clear as the ringing of a bell. Trevelyan did the gentlemanly thing and didn’t call him on trying to avoid saying it. “That you are.”

The silence they walked back in was a comfortable reprieve.


	13. Broken Foundations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again I thank you guys for your patience in updates—and let me say again how much I appreciate the comments. I don’t often expect a lot of feedback, so I get blown away every time it happens. The fact that I’m not the only one enjoying this ride means so much to me. I hope I can continue to maintain the quality of the fic as we get into the endgame here—I feel like it’s changed a little since I’ve started, though hopefully for the better.

The Arbor Wilds was one of the only locations he’d been down south that had a tolerable humidity level, which of course meant that the place had to ruin it by being infested with bugs, trees, and _wilderness._

Which perhaps he could have seen coming by the title.

They hadn’t been back in Skyhold for more than a day when plans were made to head out to the Wilds. Because _Morrigan_ had suddenly revealed to them what it was that Corypheus sought there. Morrigan who had been so elusive in Skyhold, Morrigan with the dubious agenda…Morrigan who Trevelyan spoke to with that keen and intense curiosity, that curve of his smile when she teased that was a little too familiar for comfort.

He was not jealous. Dorian Pavus did not do things so gauche as being jealous.

Morrigan, Dorian had seen back in Orlais, though he had avoided speaking with her directly. Unsuited enough to the whims of court that she gave the nobles a bad case of the vapors every time she walked by, but skilled enough at the Game, if only through leveraging her foreign allure, to be invited to all the parties where the Empress went. There was a pompous air about her that couldn’t be denied, the confidence that she was the expert in all matters of the arcane and forbidden, and the reality that she was— _often but not always--_ correct. He couldn’t find fault with that, at least. He who lives in glass houses…

There they were now at her word, standing in the middle of a horrid forest waiting for the go ahead to protect a temple that they’d never seen from all that Corypheus could scrape up to go at them. Which, judging by scout reports, was a lot. Plus the magister himself.

Once Dorian had shared what he knew regarding Corypheus’ little trick for immortality, all of the Inquisiton’s leaders had agreed to keep the Grey Warden presence as far from the Arbor Wilds as possible. Trevelyan had seemed disappointed at the loss of firepower, but it wasn’t like there weren’t darkspawn to route elsewhere.

It was interesting the way that Warden Commander Mahariel’s face had drained of all color when they shared the news with her during the discussion of this matter. Also interesting the way she’d looked at Dorian when she saw him, glancing quickly between him and Trevelyan and then waving like they were neighbors just run into each other at the market.

“Some of my best friends have tried to kill me,” she’d replied, when prompted on her abrupt acceptance of a former enemy into the fold.

In a few ways she seemed a bit like Trevelyan.

Speaking of. _He_ was still with Morrigan. Too far away to overhear. Close enough that they would both see, if he were to walk closer.

Bah.

Perhaps an hour from getting killed in a rush to stop a madman he had once served from tearing all of reality apart, and he was still thinking about Trevelyan.

Dorian scanned the pack of people that they’d accumulated, seeing familiar faces but no one he was eager to start a dialogue with. That is, until he caught sight of that enormous hat, one that had felt strangely absent since his release. Then some familiar questions rose in his chest, the pressure uncomfortable.

Cole was still something of a novelty with him, though he felt just a touch timid about approaching him. Fear of the boy digging up another painful memory without warning should they meet had kept him from seeking him out in addition to actively avoiding him. It wasn’t hard, though according to Varric he used to be much harder to notice. Watching him now, Dorian forced a smile, tried to tap into a part of him that was still curious instead of wounded, and approached.

“Hello, Cole. …Nervous about what’s to come?”

At first, Cole did not move. This close, it was evident that he was muttering to himself. “ _Kill or let free that choice was not a choice at all, if they get hurt I don’t know what I’ll do, it won’t work, I should have told him while I had the chance—_ No, Dorian. I’m fine. Did you need something?”

He hesitated, one hand poised as though in mid-gesture, his eyes trailing back over to where they have been for the past hour at least. “…Something I’m curious about. The Inquisitor. He’s…not exactly the most caring person.”

Cole turned not quite all the way to look at him, putting a finger to his mouth contemplatively—an oddly human gesture, but stiff and unpracticed. “Is there a _most_ caring person?”

That threw Dorian for a moment. “I don’t…–That’s not the point. That was just a rhetorical--”

“ _Indirect because it stings otherwise_ —yes, I am listening. Why does it bother you?”

Perhaps there was a little too much indignation in his, “It doesn’t bother me,” to sound sincere. After a moment of steadying himself he clarified, “All I mean is that you are a— _were_ a spirit of Compassion, yes? And Ser Trevelyan, while he is many great things…compassionate doesn’t appear to be one of them. So I’m curious about your…loyalty to him. Why you follow him.”

“…. It’s not that he likes causing hurt.” Cole looked right at Trevelyan as he spoke, head tilted slightly to the left. “ _Hard. Cold. Sharp. Killing to feel in control, to feel not afraid, to be alive_. He was…like me. Like I was.”

Dorian was struck by how young Cole’s form looked then. A boy who had just passed into adulthood, gangly and pale. “You…refer to your murders in the Spire?”

He nodded, clear and definitive. Standing up straight. “But different, too. I wasn’t real then. I killed to feel real. He kills to not feel real. Words don’t have to stick, dulls the blade when tongues become knives. People don’t have to be people, keeps them from taking parts of him when they stop being.” Cole was looking now at a beetle as it climbed up a blade of grass almost as tall as the top of his hat. “But he was…wrong. He wanted to be himself, unbound, pure, but it made him less instead of more. He was always real. He was just alone.”

“So you—what, so you empathize?” A brief huff, at his own part—what a dumb question. “Of course you empathize, I mean more that…”

“ _Clean. Precise. Bright. Learning to fill the holes, to understand, to find his face so he doesn’t have to fear mirrors_.” The boy looked to him then, voice burbling again and eyes just a touch more vibrant than the ghastly pale shade he usually saw. “If he’s heard, then he listens. No, Dorian. He doesn’t worry over the starving refugee, or the widow who’s lost her ring. He can’t be what he isn’t. But I heard him, so he listened to hear me, and helped me hear me too. I tell him I’m glad he helped, and it makes him happy he did it. It makes him more.”

What does one say to that? “I…see.”

“He listens to you now too, Dorian.”

Dorian simply repeated, more alarmed, “I see.”

“It is good when he cares,” Cole said, glancing over to where Trevelyan stood, once more engaged in discussion with Morrigan. “But what matters more is the helping. _You_ cared a lot, but you weren’t helping. Not before. Not enough.”

“An interesting philosophical point,” Dorian conceded. “I am…beginning to regret starting this conversation.”

Cole nodded, muttered a few more things that Dorian didn’t care to listen to, and then he wandered away to no doubt trouble some of the soldiers who were trying to keep their minds off their upcoming task. Or un-trouble them, as it were.

He was distracted enough watching him go that he jolted a little when he heard his name called.

“Dorian.”

And there was Trevelyan. His voice sounded clear and relieved, that earnest smile over his face, the one that didn’t quite seem to suit him as much as his look of bloodlust. “I saw you earlier. I-I was trying to get your attention.”

“Were you?” Perhaps there was a time or two when he’d glanced over during that conversation with Morrigan and waved. Inwardly a part of Dorian cringed. “Sorry. …I was talking to Cole.”

He laughed, hands seeming to tense a little. “Cole has a remarkable gift for making everything sound extremely complicated in as few words as possible. Was he delving into your childhood? He loves doing that.”

“My childhood?” Ironically, Dorian could think of very few legitimate “hurts” for the boy to latch onto when it came to his early years. Certain toys he’d been denied. Truths about his world that he had learned maybe a touch too soon. No, it was his adolescence where all the problems started… “He was telling me about you, actually.”

That was apparently not what Trevelyan was expecting. “Me?” His brows lifted, the slightest stirrings of—was that fear?--entering his eyes. “What did—what did he tell you?”

Dorian’s jaw shifted slightly as he contemplated how to respond. Eventually he replied, casually, “Oh, not much. Nothing I couldn’t guess on my own. Mostly that you have the emotional intelligence of an anthill.”

There was an unsteady beat of time where it seemed like that might have been the wrong thing to say, Trevelyan’s face reddening, mouth open slightly. Then he started laughing, shyly cracking his knuckles finger by finger and looking down. “I’m sure that’s not how he put it.”

“I read between the lines.”

“Cole is just…” After cracking his knuckles he proceeded to adjust and readjust the fit of his gloves, eyes still wavering. “He can’t read me well, through the anchor. That’s what he told me. And when we first met I was going through a little crisis.”

“Just a little one?” Dorian couldn’t help teasing.

Trevelyan’s eyes snapped back up to him, that same bright, brilliant green as always, the arch of his black brows more exaggerated on his pale forehead. “I’m over it now.” He swallowed, and for a moment the smile dropped as he looked over Dorian’s face, searching his expression. “I’m—I’m almost over it now.”

Perhaps he needn’t have bothered Cole with his questioning. Dorian knew, quite clearly and certainly, that whatever lay within, whatever cold he could direct at the world at large, he evidently no longer had that protection from Dorian. And something in that was just a touch frightening.

He took a step closer, reaching a hand out. “Alexiel—"

“Inquisitor!”

Dorian cursed Captain Rylen as he approached, watching Trevelyan snap to attention, posture straightening and growing rigid as he grinned over at Cullen’s hand-picked lackey.

“Right over here.”

Trevelyan spent the rest of their time before the battle discussing--and arguing over--strategy with Rylen, Briala, Cassandra, and a dwarf he didn’t recognize. Dorian watched him, brow a little pinched, hoping to steal at least one more moment with him. But an opportunity never presented itself.

Well. It was just as well. They were probably going to die soon.

He was jarred from his staring when Iron Bull walked up behind him, bringing one great hand down on his shoulder almost like a slap, almost enough to make his teeth rattle. It took all the self control he had not to attempt to lurch free, sputtering indignantly like an easily startled child.

“You and the boss, huh?”

Ah. Yes, their conversation hadn’t been entirely discreet, had it? Really, it had been “him and the boss” since before Fallow Mire, but Dorian couldn’t bring himself to clarify. Instead he only said, craning just slightly to look up at the giants’ face, “Still have your one eye on me? Do you just happen to like what you see?”

Bull grinned rakishly, that one eye bright and sharp and giving him its entire, unwavering attention. “Hey, not like I’m complaining about the view. But let’s not pretend you weren’t introduced to all of us leading an army to destroy a bunch of pilgrims.”

Dorian felt a familiar exhaustion begin to seep over him at the comment, pulling forward enough to be able to turn, to look at him properly. He couldn’t be angry. He couldn’t pretend he wasn’t that man—he had been. But one thing he’d never been was a _liar_ , and that held true still. “Must I have this conversation with all of you? Am I not here to help? Have I not been tested?”

“Hey, hey—I’m not here to spit on your shoes or nothing. Especially not before a fight.” It was odd to see such a great lummox of a man look conciliatory, raising his hands in a gesture that on a _normally sized, shirt wearing person_ would look submissive. “I’m glad you’re on the team. Always nice to have magic turned _away_ from our side than toward it, you know?”

“Glad to hear it.” Perhaps in the interests of comradery he should be a little bit less hostile, but something in Iron Bull’s manner always had him on edge. That little nagging feeling that he wasn’t behaving like he _should._ “So then, what about me and the Inquisitor? Your great alacrity for observation tells you we get along? Is this a problem?”

“A problem? Nah. Guy could use someone to take his mind off all the shit he’s gotta wade through. And he’s been hung up on _you_ since—well, probably since Halamshiral, let’s be real here.”

In spite of himself that caused a small flush to his cheeks, remembering that night. Though he was certain there was a threat in there somewhere about how it had ended.

Bull continued. “Don’t take it personally if I’m a little paranoid, Dorian. Crazier things have happened than a reformed bad guy turning out to have not reformed so much. Like a giant hole opening in the sky, for one.” Irritatingly, that was a good point. “I just want to let you know I’m still watching.”

Dorian’s mouth was a thin line, brow set as he spoke. “I’ll try to make sure I’m suitably interesting, then.”

That made the Qunari laugh. He was still casual—like they were discussing an academic probation, instead of Dorian potentially proving himself to be no better a man than when he started. Somehow that made it all the more infuriating. “I mean, the boss clearly isn’t worried. He’s got me with the Chargers instead of with you guys, after all. So he probably does trust you.”

There was a call from amidst a gaggle of mismatched fighters. The Chargers, looking for their Chief. The Iron Bull stood straighter, started moving to leave.

As he walked away, without turning around he said, “Funny thing though. Sometimes the thing he ‘trusts’ people to do is die easily if they’re not on the level.”

Then he was gone, leaving Dorian fuming in his wake.

But now it was time for the march, and he could no longer occupy his thoughts with that.

 

The Inquisitor’s entire circle had been called to participate in the charge on the temple, but in practice very few of them actually got there.

Bull was gone at the outset, leading the aptly named Chargers into combat against the first wave of Corypheus’ forces that tried to keep their army blocked off. It consisted of Red Lyrium horrors, Venatori, and Grey Wardens, though Dorian saw a few more shabbily dressed men and women involved as well. Sellswords, by the look of them. Ah, but then, so were the Chargers. Dorian could have sworn he saw a few Tal-Vashoth among their enemy ranks, but Iron Bull dwarfed them in both size and ferocity. His men and women didn’t come out unscathed, but as far as Dorian could see there were no casualties.

It wasn’t like they stuck around to watch, though. The moment the path was clear Trevelyan took off, other units joining the fray elsewhere as his small crew fell in behind him. Dorian could see among them as he ran Cassandra, Varric, Rainier, Vivienne, Sera, Solas, and Cole.

How remarkably strange, to be in battle with people he gave a damn about.

A part of him wondered if the Inquisitor had struggled with the same feeling.

They lost Varric first.

One moment they were cutting through the forest to the direction that had been outlined by Morrigan, the next they were being assaulted by Templars. Dorian felt his magic sputtering out in their presence, watched as Vivienne and Solas both also struggled with their talents as the area was being routinely cleansed of magic. It wasn’t that they couldn’t handle them, necessarily—their party consisted of more than just mages, and even among them all had developed a few non-magic combat skills.

But there were a lot of them. Kill one band and a fresh wave would come for them from another beaten path in the forest. As much as slaughtering fools all day sounded like a great prospect, they had a timetable to keep.

Varric didn’t hesitate, laying traps in one breath and readying Bianca in the next. “I think we both know I’m not cut out for searching for a temple with every bush smacking me in the face. I’ll hold the line here.”

Trevelyan tossed him a bag of the red powder from Fallow Mire. “The Chargers are nearby. Call them over and don’t get yourself trampled.”

As they left Dorian caught Varric doing something that looked like a mix between a respectful salute and an obscene gesture. Trevelyan saw it too, continually looking over his shoulder, and he laughed.

Vivienne was next, falling prey to unexpected developments on the part of their enemy.

With the outer walls of the battle breached, the Inquisition’s mages had been able to infiltrate the field. It was fortunate that they had, of course, fighting alongside Inquisition-armor former Templars against Venatori. And the demons they summoned.

Such as enormous Pride demons, slashing for what was at its heart a gaggle of apprentices, with raking claws and gnashing teeth.

She didn’t even have to think about it.

Vivienne pivoted on her stiletto heel and slammed her staff into the ground, a wave of ice spiking into the air just as the demons hit. Some of the mages fell on their rears in shock, staring up at the wall that had protected them. The one amongst them who not only had the wherewithal to remain standing but to continue casting—the disfigured elf, the one who was always glaring at him, Fiona—she turned to the Grand Enchanter and gave her a fierce, quick nod.

Vivienne turned to Trevelyan. “Duty calls, my dear.”

He looked just a touch queasy at the thought of her no longer being along to provide offensive support, eyes flickering between her and the weapons she held in either hand. But it passed, and he nodded, swallowing. “Keep—keep your people safe.”

“As I ever do, darling. Show the magister what for.”

It wasn’t long after that before they discovered that strange elves were involved.

They were certainly not part of Corypheus’ forces, which was probably the most confusing element of the whole thing. Their first view of them was one—hooded in unfamiliar robes that sparkled oddly in the light—felling a sellsword with a clean swipe of their long, gleaming knives. Then the elf turned, spotted them, and then that dagger just barely missed Dorian’s ear as it sailed past.

“You have to be bloody kidding me, a _third_ faction—” he heard Trevelyan grumble as he returned fire, eyes alight and angry.

Their counter attack was swift and vicious, but the elves were not like the cultists under Corypheus’ banner. They were not obsessed with getting in damage. They did not throw their fellows in harms way just to get a hit, or push through obvious fire spells with the rabid determination to succeed. Their strategy was thoughtful and cautious, and while they weren’t making much headway against killing the Inquisition with such methods, they were successfully holding the line to stymy further progress.

Beside him Dorian heard a disgusted snort and then a Nevarran accented, “We do not have _time_ for this.” Then there was a wall of armor pushing through, swinging her shield and essentially making herself out to be one big target. A target that hacked and slashed at any who got close.

They lost Cassandra as they lost the elves in the greenery. Trevelyan had to be practically dragged away.

And of course, right as they were minus one seeker capable of dispelling magic and exploding the lyrium in someone’s veins, that was when they ran into their final contingent of Venatori mages.

They weren’t the cream of the crop or anything—Dorian recognized one or two of them, apprentices who had joined in hopes of better training than what they could receive at the second-rate Circle their parents sent them to. Yet, dwindling down as they were it was harder to give them the savage beat-down that would end the fight quickly, giving them time to start casting barriers and sigils to replenish their energy. It didn’t help that more of those elves were picking at them from the fringes, dividing their attention.

As they all started to run low on energy, alone stood Rainier, the very picture of fortitude. He barreled through everything thrown at him, putting himself easily between them and further harm. He had just cut down the last caster when the Venatori group’s reinforcements arrived.

Grey Wardens. Those who had had their minds already taken by Corypheus and either survived Adamant or been elsewhere at the time. Three warriors and two mages, by the look of them. With two bound Rage demons to boot.

Rainier’s eyes were hard to see under his griffon helmet, but the swivel of his head as he took in their odds said enough. Their new foes looked him over, saw the colors he wore, the insignia on his armor.

Because Blackwall was a Grey Warden, too.

He shoved Sera to the ground, stabbed a patch of dirt next to her head, and shouted, “ _For Corypheus!_ Come on! The Inquisitor’s that way and he’s wounded!”

Brains muddled, the wardens watched him run for a moment before they gave pursuit, completely and entirely missing out on how the actual Inquisitor, winded but unharmed, was lying right there in the grass perhaps a few feet from them.

Solas swallowed down a lyrium potion, grimacing at the taste, and then cast a quick rejuvenation spell on those of them that remained. Trevelyan stood immediately, watching where Rainier had run, eyes blank.

“—Make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.”

The command had been directed at any one of them, but of course naturally Sera was the one to answer the call, not needing to be asked twice. Her lithe limbs cut through the grass as she took off, bow drawn and mud down her sleeve where she’d hit the ground just moments before.

\--Then she ran back, sticking her finger in Trevelyan’s face. “If you die, first day in your statue’s getting covered in pigeon shit.”

Trevelyan put his hands on his hips, eyes grave. “Well, now I might die on purpose just to see how you get all the pigeons to shit on my statue at once.”

She threw a wad of grass and mud at him—a wad he expertly ducked—and then once more sprinted after Rainier.

Their crew had dwindled down to four, and it was clear that the strain was starting to get to their fearless leader. He was no longer running, steps quick and constrained as he moved. The tailcoat of his jacket fluttered with each step, heavy with blood like the rest of him.

Huddled in something that looked a little like a cracked, ancient rotunda was a group that from their dress appeared to be followers of Florianne, unaware or just not caring that their lady was dead. They were focused on an information exchange, wholly unaware of the group just a little ways off into the underbrush. Dorian figured they could have easily snuck past.

An arrow lodged in the leading harlequin’s eye, and he crumpled like a house of cards.

The fight went by in something of a blur. Trevelyan took care of them with a desperate ferocity, even going so far as to resort to his hands when necessary, snapping and twisting and breaking whatever he could grab. He might have been stabbed in the gut several times if Cole, Dorian, and Solas hadn’t been intervening when they could, when there was room to.

In all the chaos they almost missed it when suddenly there was _a damned bear._

Trevelyan and the bard he was grappling with both stumbled backwards, but it was their foe that served as the target for the bear’s snarling fangs. Its jaws locked down on his shoulder, pulling off a hefty chunk of him amidst his screams and the spray of blood. Its great paw swept his fellow to the side with a sick _crunch_.

Then it grew still.

The bear cleanly and elegantly transitioned into the form of a woman with scraps for robes, black hair, and glowing yellow eyes, and there was Morrigan again.

“You took your time,” she said.

Trevelyan’s expression pinched. “There is a _battle_ going on right now.”

The corner of her mouth curved in amusement. “Excuses, excuses.”

She led them through the last patch of woods. Up crumbling stairways, through a half-standing gate, and there, flanked by two eroded wolf statues, stood the entrance to the Temple of Mythal.

The wilderness and the fighting that was going on outside seemed far away once they had passed the threshold. Like moving into a protected bubble, the urgency that had carried them through the mad dash slowly fuzzed out into a calm, white noise.

The tunnel inside was long, and dark. “Rather ominous introduction,” Dorian murmured into the silence, his words echoing off the ancient stone. There was no response, though he did see Trevelyan turn back to him, eyes shining in what faint daylight made it in.

Quite the scene awaited them on the other side.

The elves standing their ground against the Venatori forces that assailed them. Corypheus falling prey to the temple’s defense mechanisms, being reduced to bones and then not even that when the magic was through. Calpernia carving her way through in his stead flanked by her people, a smirk of victory on her lips. Trevelyan vaulting over the side of the railing to run after them, snarling again with no sense of caution.

Corypheus being reborn.

Dorian had never seen it up close. He’d never wanted to.

In truth, Corypheus had died multiple times before and after the explosion at the Conclave. He was powerful, yes, but like sadly too many mages his power relied entirely on magic. Whatever muscle structure he had was in spite of the Blight ravaging his body, the twisted warping of his skin taking a toll on his physical health. And for whatever reason, healing magic had no effect on him—it was as though his body itself was a living corpse. He would frequently be followed by Grey Wardens anywhere he went, listless slaves to his will. And when he died, as he sometimes did when invading ancient elven ruins with their advanced security measures, one of those wardens would become him again.

Dorian had never seen it up close, but he did remember just narrowly avoiding having to watch every now and then. In these cases, the change would delay—Corypheus would wear his shell until it was no longer beneficial to do so, and then fully reassert himself, giving everyone involved enough warning to turn their heads, but not enough time to be out of earshot.

This time, there was no warning.

One of the wardens who had managed to survive the blast started to jerk wildly, cheeks twitching and eyes going wild. The others saw it coming, Morrigan pressing for them to continue after the Venatori, Solas and Cole following close behind. Trevelyan had been in step behind them—and then suddenly he wasn’t, halfway across the bridge and looking back with a fixated stare at the man whose flesh was splitting and molting off as Corypheus climbed out of his body.

“ _Fly_ you fool!” Dorian shoved his back, causing him to stumble into a run once more. None of them looked back after that, didn’t see Corypheus hurtling down the bridge towards him, his body burning and his eyes flaring red, until they were struggling to swing the great doors shut.

They all waited until they’d gotten their breath back before talking.

None of their usual suspects for crass remarks had made it all the way to the temple with them. As such, it was Trevelyan who first said, “That was some fucked up shit,” both hands braced on the door and still breathing heavily. When he glanced back to the rest of them his stupor had twisted back into the savagely grinning, wild-eyed look he was so fond of.

“He was dead, and then he wasn’t,” Cole said in horrified wonder, his voice cracking. “Him but not him.”

“We were given forewarning,” Solas said gravely, his eyes fixed on the door as though he expected Corypheus to break his way through. “But that was not an adequate preparation for so ugly a talent. A man who lives by stealing the lives of others…”

“Yes, well,” Dorian huffed, hands on his hips. “You are starting to see where my skepticism for your chances came from, yes?”

“They were talking about a _Well of Sorrows_.” Trevelyan was eyeing Morrigan now, still showing teeth. He sounded amused. “Not an Eluvian.”

For the first time since Dorian had met Morrigan, she looked lost. “I…am uncertain what he referred to.”

As they argued—or rather, Morrigan got more brackish as Trevelyan needled her further, Dorian took the opportunity to look around where they had stumbled into. It was not the interior of the temple, it seemed, but more akin to a courtyard. The sunlight shone impressively over architecture that was, for the most part, still standing. Hidden cleverly away by rock and tree, visible only from the inside. In the center of the courtyard was a strange setup of carved panels, arranged like a circular path with odd twists and turns among it. It was a unique place—Dorian had seen many temples at this point, but few were this elaborate at the outset, much less so well preserved.

He didn’t realize how much of his focus was taken up by examining their surroundings until he felt someone at his side.

“It would be nice to be here without a time limit.” Trevelyan was looking over a crumbling mosaic before them, the artwork sun-bleached and difficult to make out. “I always liked the exploring. That’s my favorite part of this job. I hate not being allowed that.”

Dorian offered him a terse smile. “I can imagine. I’m certainly not eager to be here when Corypheus manages to break down the door.” Truthfully he also wasn’t keen on catching up with Calpernia. But that was for different reasons, of course.

He heard a considering hum. “I think we could take him.”

Said like they were schoolboys staring down a particularly large bully. That made him laugh. “And you trust me to remain on your side instead of reverting to my nefarious Venatori ways?”

“I just want you to know, Dorian, that you have just asked me a very dumb question.”

The apprehensive arch of his shoulders hadn’t even occurred to him until they relaxed. Nothing came out in his voice but he felt…better. “Well, perhaps you should tell that to your Qunari lackey so I won’t have to keep looking over my shoulder.”

When that didn’t net an immediate reply, he glanced over, feeling rather like he’d squandered whatever joviality was between them. Trevelyan was no longer looking at the mosaic.

“Did…” His voice got oddly quiet, features going slack. “Did he threaten you?”

Dorian scoffed. “He didn’t threaten so much as strongly imply you would be adept at knifing me if I turned on you. Which is a scenario that won’t happen, of course.”

He looked ahead once more, face completely blank. “…I suppose I’ll have to kill him when we get back, then.”

Dorian laughed. And then after a second his laughter cut off, suddenly not sure if the man was joking or not. “Don’t kill your allies on my account.”

Trevelyan rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the gesture just a touch too exaggerated to look genuine. “I’ll just hit him with a big stick, then.”

“Just for insulting little old me? Can’t imagine he’d care for that.”

Finally the laughter was reciprocated, green eyes lighting up with mischief. “Oh, he might. I’ve done it before.”

Dorian blinked. “What? Why?”

“Well, he asked me to.”

“He _what?_ ”

There was a noise in the air, the sound of something very large tearing apart, the grinding of stone and metal. Solas spoke up behind them, voice terse, “Perhaps you could hold this conversation another time.”

Trevelyan glanced at him before striding away from Dorian, voice all business once more. “Right, yes. --Morrigan. All I have to do is light up these tiles?”

“Yes, but ’tis a little more complicated than—"

He hoisted himself up onto the platform, the intricate stone pattern filling with blue light the moment it made contact with his muddied and bloodied boots. A few seconds went by as he appraised the pathway, eyes shifting rapidly over the stone. He then proceeded to clear the ritual—puzzle—as fast as he could run.

Solas was staring at him as the doors swung open while he jumped from the path. “You…picked that up very quickly.”

Trevelyan did not look back. “I like solving things.”

 

“I am remembering,” Trevelyan muttered as he paced, eyeing the hole that Calpernia had blown through the floor as Cole finished off the last of the Venatori that had been sent to slow them, “the beam of light at the Citadelle Du Corbeau that burned everything it touched to ash.”

He wasn’t talking to Solas, who had spoken of following the temple’s rituals for the sake of respecting what had been. He wasn’t talking to Cole, who had spoken of taking the shortcut to shorten the length of time that the people outside would have to suffer and die to hold off Corypheus’ forces. He wasn’t talking to Morrigan, who had given her little speech of preserving the mystical. He was, well. Talking to himself.

“And curiosity has to—has to have its place…”

The issue of whether they prove better men than the Venatori or guarantee themselves a chance at actually catching up to them felt very painfully familiar. _Sink to your foe’s level or be beaten._ It was practically embedded in Tevinter’s bedrock. He was growing quite tired of such ultimatums as of late.

“I’ll go through the shortcut,” he offered suddenly.

All eyes turned to him, Trevelyan in particular halting mid-stride with wide-eyed alarm in his features.

Dorian soldiered on, waving his hand dismissively even as his nerves jumped. “Do your little rituals—appease whatever it is this temple wants from you, prove yourself most ‘worthy’ or whatever. I will go after Calpernia. I will…deal with her.”

Exactly how he was going to do that, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t a matter of skill—Calpernia had raw talent but her training was severely lacking compared to Dorian’s. It was more that…well. She wasn’t like the others. He did not, however, give voice to that.

Seeming frozen in pose, Trevelyan still didn’t look entirely certain. “Do you think you’ll be able to?”

The answer _Probably not_ never made it past his lips. “We weren’t exactly bosom buddies.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It seems a fine compromise,” Morrigan mused. Dorian resisted the urge to snap at her that he was talking solely to Trevelyan. “We can still follow the proper rites to have access to the Well, while ridding us of at least some of the urgency that would press us elsewhere.”

“As long as—” Trevelyan looked between them before taking steps towards Dorian, his voice lowering and stumbling slightly over the words. “As long as you can handle it.”

He put on his bravest front, the cocky grin he knew how to make by heart. “Such concern, Inquisitor! I thought I told you I don’t need a nursemaid.” The ground quivered beneath their feet, and he coughed. “Just, ah…don’t dawdle, yes?”

 

It didn’t take him as long as he had thought to catch up.

Right before he’d left, Trevelyan had taken a ring from his pocket and pressed it into his hand. A warm little thing, covered in inscriptions that looked vaguely Elvish. Invisible, as long as he wore it—as long as nothing disrupted its subtle enchantments, he was hidden. He would let his curiosity take him on the little token later, but for now he was just grateful that it allowed him to bypass any lingering hostile forces without having to waste time killing them.

As he darted through the narrow hallway that the hole opened up to, he heard magic being cast—the brilliant, clear tones of a sigil being activated, the blasting crackle of fire. And in step with those sounds, he also heard the cries of those it was being used on. The screams of elves being crushed, snapped, and burned to a crisp.

As he reached the ceremonial chamber for the “Well of Sorrows”, he couldn’t stop himself from halting and staring in wonder. Accustomed at this point to the complex stonework and murals of the ancient temples to the old gods, he was expecting elaborate.

He wasn’t expecting life.

The Well of Sorrows sat in a great atrium so large he couldn’t see the other side. The rock around them was not carved, nor pulled by spell, but seemed to flow through the space as though guided by a gentle touch, water cascading from its smooth slopes. The very center of the ceiling was open, and warm, golden sunlight falling down in rays over lush, verdant grass, bushes, flowers, and vines. Trees ripe with strange fruit sat temptingly along a flowing stream that led to the center of the great room, which itself seemed to be a large platform constructed of intermingling tree trunks.

Other areas of the temple had been overtaken by greenery through neglect, nature coming in to reclaim what had been eroded by age.

Such was not the case here. Here, nature did as it was directed.

It was beautiful.

Ahead of him Calpernia strode purposeful and swift beside the watery channel ahead, barely slowing down as the Venatori flanking her stopped to move dead elves aside. Shaking himself briefly, Dorian pushed his sense of wonderment away and ran to catch up, his boots striking against the stone of the pathway. The Venatori alongside her were not mages, clad in armor that clunked noisily as they made their way, one of them swishing through the water. They did not hear him.

Calpernia did.

She stopped in her tracks.

Before Dorian even had a chance to speak, she was casting Mind Blast on him, the edges of her robe twirling as she turned.

The ring’s effects sputtered out as the magic took hold of him, mind an aching white as he stumbled into the water and fell to his knees. Everything he saw was red, and though he didn’t feel any pain in his mouth he could taste the sour, coppery tang of blood on his tongue.

Something in her eyes changed when his form became visible to her, but it did nothing to change her actions.

Spitting, trying to rid himself of the horrible, horrible taste in his mouth, vision unable to focus, he clutched at his staff and said only, “Calpernia.”

She’d always known about his problem. Known, because he’d asked her for help in fixing it. Known that neither of them had arrived at any real solution other than prevention.

The pain intensified as she doubled her assault. The world faded in and out as he grew dizzy, knowing that if he hadn’t been holding onto his staff for dear life right then he could very well fall face-first into the water and just drown there at her feet. Empty, worthless, undone--

No.

Breathe.

The Mind Blast could not open new wounds. Only press on old ones.

He sucked in as much air as his lungs could take, smelled the plants and mud around him, and pushed at the magic around his brain.

It was agony. The harder he tried to shove with his will, the more the spell cracked against it. For a moment it almost convinced him to fall under—to curl up under the onslaught and hope that it ended. But that was not who he was. And he would learn that again even if it tore his mind apart.

\--Ah. And there he was again. Dorian Pavus, kneeling in water with nothing more than a massive headache.

There was a long moment of silence stretched after that before he dared look up.

Calpernia had made no move to finish him off. She stood there, hands clenched tight and chin held out proudly, the way it would sometimes if he tossed a barbed comment her way over strategy meetings and reports.

In all honesty, he had been prepping for this by reminding himself that they were no longer colleagues. She was not the one tolerable person in a sea of greedy idiots. She was Corypheus’ right hand lieutenant. The leader of those who sought to destroy the world in a mad dash to revive a people who destroyed themselves with their own lust for power. The barrier between them and peace. She was dangerous. She was his enemy.

But looking up at her now, it didn’t feel like she had to be.

Disdain a hollow note in her tone, she opened with, “I’d been hoping you wouldn’t be foolish enough to come here, Pavus.”

A small burst of surprise took over what he’d planned to say next. “Is that concern I’m hearing?”

“No. You betrayed our cause for a warm bed and empty righteousness.” Calpernia’s features deformed into a scowl as the warrior Venatori around her held up their swords, looking as though they were just waiting for the opportunity to chop his head off. “I have no love lost for a spoiled traitor.”

There it was. Put up against the peers she practically towered over it was easy to focus on her positive traits, but there was a reason why the two of them weren’t friends. There was a reason why she was on her side, and he on his.

“I betrayed your ‘cause’ because that was the _right thing to do_ ,” Dorian spat, clutching his staff tightly, feeling water seeping into his boots as he stood. “And shows what you know—Skyhold is _dismally_ cold this time of year.”

The air around them crackled, and he realized the risk inherent in moving to his feet when he saw the magical power already building in her eyes. On a mission together he had once seen her reduce a captain of the White Claw Raiders to ashes from the waist down. He’d still been frantically clawing at the dirt as they laid waste to the rest of his crew.

“Tevinter is spare on men with principles,” she said, hands almost glowing. “Do not make me remove one more.”

Dorian put his staff away and said quickly, “I’m not here to fight you, Calpernia. I know you to be honorable. Someone with good intentions. I’m here to tell you that your good intentions are being abused.”

Predictably, she scoffed. “You never were able to stomach the lengths that our purpose required. You haven’t seen Tevinter from the ground as I have. Of course you would see the grittiness of reality and think it mistreatment, growing up in your ivory tower.”

But even as she spoke, he saw a flicker of doubt in her eyes.

That flicker became his lifeline.

“You think you’ve gone too far.” The world wobbled around him a little, but he forced himself to stay upright. She was trying to stand with her back to him, but couldn’t seem to help glancing back in his direction as he spoke. “You think there’s been too much cost in this whole crazy endeavor for you to turn your back on the man you’ve followed. Even as it’s becoming more and more apparent to you that he is not only a _a maleficar abomination_ —”

She turned fully, eyes full of fire. “You _watch your tongue_ , Pavus—”

"—But a _madman_.” He paused, as though daring her to interrupt again. “Get _real_ , Calpernia. I wanted to believe as much as you, but Corypheus is never going to present the utopian vision he promises. All he cares about is power for _himself_. Magisters like him are the _reason_ Tevinter crumbled."

“Tevinter crumbled because of the weakness of men. It crumbled because of a people who have forgotten their heritage, the wonders that they could accomplish.” He had always wondered what sort of books Erasthenes had stocked up in his personal library for her knowledge-starved eyes. Almost all of her historical understanding seemed to root in the ancients. Not what had come after. “Corypheus is that heritage in the flesh. You doubt, and yet look at the wonders he has shown us.”

And he did look. He looked again at the sculpted natural beauty, the elegantly carved pathway, and the warm golden light that fell through the magic-saturated air. He looked at this ancient place, locked away from human eyes for centuries, if not millennia.

But he saw something different than she did.

“You call him mad, but that we stand here now is proof of his brilliance. Can’t you feel it?” She turned, and he could see just for a moment the excitement on her face as she looked to where the Well sat. If he closed his eyes and mucked his way through the aching in his temples, he could sense it too—something vast, brimming with power just out of reach. But it was too complex for him to grasp in the abstract, and his mind pulsed painfully again. “The Well knows its Vessel.”

A scornful breath escaped him. “I was going to be the Vessel before you. Before he’d even trusted us enough to explain what I was even going to be the Vessel _of._ And you think this is somehow destiny? You think something you barely understand will bring you greatness?”

Her eyes narrowed. She swung her arm, and the air crackled in its wake. “I will be the sword by which Corypheus brings the Qunari beast men to heel. I will be the chisel through which he reshapes the world. It is an honor, and not something to be undertaken lightly. An honor _you_ weren’t worthy of from the start.”

“If there’s one thing here in which you are correct, it is that you are going to be a _tool_ ,” Dorian spat, fumbling in the pouch on his hip, teeth grit. “You want to know what you’re getting into? What Corypheus has planned for his ‘Vessel’? Here. Read it and be _enlightened_.”

He tossed her the scroll, and she caught it with a look of suspicion on her face. That look quickly gave way to confusion and shock as she took in its contents, eyes growing wide.

Calpernia didn’t grow up in politics. She didn’t grow up with powerful men and women making overtures to her, trying to leverage what she wanted against her to grab at her power. There were no wealthy nobleman assuring her the moon if she would only offer her hand, her influence, her might. She had grown up ignored. Told where to go and what to do and only that. Why go to the trouble to lie to a slave? What could anyone have wanted from her?

So of course, the moment she displayed her vast talent, there was someone there to do what Tevinters always did.

It gave him no pleasure, to tear the wool from her eyes. The lesson hadn’t been more pleasant for him, just because he learned it earlier. That sense of despair, that growing sickness that slowly overtook him day by day, it was all much more gradual. Better indeed that it be like removing a bandage--quick, clean, and over in a few short moments of pain.

“He made so many promises, and _every one a lie_!” Her voice rang through the atrium, distorted with her betrayal. The Venatori beside her were stiff, watching as she paced angrily up and down the path, the parchment crumpling in her grip.

And of course, he’d been there too.

Just not with Corypheus.

“ _This_ is the land we come from.” Something in his voice broke when she looked to him, but he soldiered on. “The only honor those in power will grant you is to be used like a cheap pawn for their own ends.”

She clutched the scroll in her hands, knuckles white and eyes firmly closed. The Venatori beside her had long since lowered their weapons, expressions unreadable through the helmets but clearly unsure of what to do as she grappled with the truth, as he had.

And then she looked to him again, resolve burning strong as ever. “No.”

“No?” He suddenly felt unsteady. “No what?”

“No, this is not Tevinter. This is not what we _are_ , not what we _could be_. This is only mankind, selfish and greedy.” She crumpled the scroll and shoved it into her pocket. “Men like Corypheus do not define us.”

“ _You_ were just spouting off about what a great leader he would make!” Dorian sputtered. “How can you possibly say that?”

“I admit, I was…misled.” Did it speak to her idealism or blind fanaticism that she only hesitated for just a moment? “I will find a new way to restore Tevinter to its rightful place. To fix its shambling glory before we fall, and the world falls with us. You may have given up hope but I have not and I _will not_.”

And it was then that whatever was building inside him burst, and he held out a hand to indicate the temple ruins. “Look around you! Our legacy is built on the ruins of a culture _we destroyed_.”

“To make something new in its place.” As she spoke, her tone grew stronger, more assured. The zeal of her words began to overtake any doubt that had been there before, and he was reminded of why the weak saw a strong shepherd in her. “You cannot make bricks without breaking stone. It all has meaning, Dorian. Just as they were back then, sacrifices are being made every day. Pointless, senseless sacrifices. But we can make them mean something. In Tevinter a million slaves die crushed under the weight of magisters fat with their dwindling riches and dreaming of a land they’ve left to rot. But there is so much more their lives could be. Their blood could revive us, instead of just carelessly lost in squabbling with petty rivals.”

He was not among the weak.

“You forget, I’ve heard your preaching before. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

“Then why are you content to do _nothing about it_?”

The question hit him like a splash of cold water. He could think of nothing to say in answer to it. Only, numbly, “…The Inquisitor is coming this way.”

She nodded, growing grave and purposeful again. “Then I will make sure I’m not here when he arrives. Let him take this Well so that our old ‘master’ does not have it.”

Then there was hesitation, a wavering uncertainty in her footsteps. Her eyes turned back to him and he was surprised again to see something that looked like regret.

“You could come with me. …It is clear now who the real traitor of our people is.”

That surprised him further.

Dorian thought about it. He imagined himself returning under the banner of the Venatori for a cause he only half believed in. Thought about moving back into the rat race of Tevinter politics with few he could trust, and fewer he could genuinely call friends.

Thought about making a difference all the same, of cleaning away the awful muck that he could feel coating his insides when it was late and he couldn’t sleep at night.

And then what would happen to the Inquisition without him? Would Corypheus still be defeated? Would they say that the Tevinter who defected to their ranks quit the field at a pivotal moment? Would the Southerners sneer and chalk it up to bad breeding?

Would Alexiel miss him?

“Tevinter could certainly use another reformer,” he said at last, offering a grim smile. “Go there. Leave Corypheus and his mad power grab for us.”

“Us?” There was a faint quirk of her lips.

“It’s…not an unpleasant feeling,” he admitted, voice lowering as he ran a hand through his mussed hair, “To be part of an organization with solid goals I can actually stand behind.”

That, at least, she seemed to understand. She offered him a nod. “It is good that the Inquisition knows talent when it sees it. Don’t let anyone squander it, Dorian. Least of all yourself.”

Then she was gone.

So then, that was that. There was no longer a pressing need to beat Calpernia to the Well. He could, in fact, walk right up to it. Theoretically, he could take its powers for himself, whatever they may be. The thought terrified him, but he could still do it. He could also head back and rejoin the group—that thought felt much more reassuring. Surely they must have finished their rituals by now. He could go back, maybe say something about Calpernia going over the nearby falls so they didn’t go looking for her.

Dorian turned—

\--and came face to face with Trevelyan and his cold, curious eyes.

He was close, close enough that Dorian stumbled backwards on reflex.

In this lighting, with that look on his face, he appeared strange. Empty. Not the flat, monotone emptiness of a Tranquil but the kind of emotionless of someone who had just watched a man murdered in the street and then had the cheer to go out for a nice lunch afterwards.

He stared at Dorian for a moment before leaning to look past him. His voice was placid. “You talked her down.”

His throat tightened just a little. “…I did.”

“That’s disappointing.” Flat, almost toneless. “I was imagining all the things I could try to kill her. Now I won’t get to put them into action.” His brow drew in a little, as though realizing that he was exposing something he shouldn’t about himself. Still not looking at Dorian, though. “—You did the right thing, of course, I don’t mean to imply otherwise. It’s never good to throw competent people away when they can be…reasoned with instead. But she just…Hm.”

Dorian remembered Cole’s words.

There was no malice in him. At one time, watching the way he delighted in his violence, the brutality he was capable of, he had thought perhaps there was. But it was like a child knocking down building blocks. It was just a way of relating to a world that was always trying to kill him. As formerly one of those things, Dorian could understand that. That was simplicity in his face as he looked longingly where Calpernia had once stood, not emptiness.

“I think you’d like her, if you got to know her,” he tried, the shift of the other man’s eyes the only indication he’d caught his attention. “She’s principled. Pragmatic. Knows exactly what she’s capable of. Never does anything she would…regret.”

“I do like that.” His voice was distant. Perhaps the rituals had put him in an odd state of mind. It was certainly harder to appreciate the temple running through its broken debris than through the intended path of a worshipper. Or maybe it was being alone with only Solas, Cole, and Morrigan for company. “We were going to run research on her, you know. Find out if there was a way to get under her skin or something. Then I got…distracted.”

“With the other Venatori lieutenant,” Dorian supplied helpfully.

A smile twitched on the Inquisitor’s face. “Yes, with the other Venatori lieutenant.”

The tension slowly unspooled from his stomach.

Experimentally, he reached a hand out to brush the man’s long bangs behind his ear.

Immediately, his expression softened, losing its frosted edge and regaining its focus on him.

“I’m glad she didn’t hurt you,” Trevelyan said quietly.

“It looks like you avoided having to slaughter your way through an army of Venatori. So I’m glad for that,” Dorian responded finally, allowing a small smile. “Though I suspect you would have enjoyed it.”

He cleared his throat, a cheekier and even dare he think it somewhat _bashful_ grin brightening his features. “I would have.”

Footsteps on tile rang through the hall, and in ran Cole and Solas.

At the sight of them, Trevelyan seemed to snap back to where they were and what they happened to be doing. “Oh—did you see a hooded elf and a bird go through here?”

“A hooded elf and a bird?” Cole and Solas ran past them after a brief pause to orient themselves in their new environment. Dorian and Trevelyan followed, though at more of a brisk walk. “Perhaps you should tell me what exactly those rituals led you to, Inquisitor.”

“Ah, right.” For a moment he looked the very picture of an impatient youth, eyes rolling and childish rises in tone as he spoke. “I did the rituals correctly, and they opened up a doorway through which we found a new chamber, some kind of—podium space. Everything was going _fine_ , we were playing nice with the ancient elves and learning about Arlathan’s civil war when Morrigan—”

Dorian whipped his head around so quickly that his neck hurt. “I beg your pardon?”

“What?”

“You said—you said _ancient elves._ And—Arlathan having a civil war? I’ve never read anything that said anything about—"

He grinned wide. “Oh, yes, apparently Tevinter didn’t destroy Arlathan after all. Your people just came along to pick the carcass clean after their society collapsed.”

_“What?”_

Instead of bothering to answer his question or provide further clarification, Trevelyan grabbed his hand, tugging him along as he started to sprint.

“Come on, he’ll destroy the Well if we don’t hurry and I won’t have even seen what it looks like!”

Dorian just barely managed to avoid falling as he kept pace, head reeling and able to focus on nothing but the fingers clutching his wrist.


	14. Alone in the Fade (And Only There)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Considering this was supposed to be a breather chapter, this was awfully difficult to write. Had to remove an entire section, add a section, etc. It’s finally done though!

_Haven was cold, and he hated everyone there._

_This was not something he gave voice to, of course. On the outside, he smiled and nodded and listened to them whispering about Andraste without shoving their faces into a wall. On the inside he was wondering how many people he could hypothetically run through before they stopped praising the snow under his boots as holy._

_Ostwick had been slowly killing him inside, true, but it had never been this cold, and so he wished he was back home. A thorny briar he was used to was infinitely better than being out in the open in an unfamiliar place with too many eyes looking on him. Even the act of hunting, animal pelts and bags of meat slung over his shoulder, seemed to invite whispers and shy looks. He was forced to ignore them as he steered clear of the training yard where Cassandra was bashing through Cullen’s defenses in demonstration for their new recruits. If his arms and thoughts had been unoccupied, he might have liked to watch._

_The requisition officer—Threnn?--sputtered when he tossed his kills onto the little desk, tried to offer some thanks as he strode away. He hadn’t done it for her. Though the gratitude did send a little warmth into his chest as he strode purposefully for the Chantry._

_Varric was up in his usual spot by the crest of the hill, discussing something with one of their runners. Trevelyan ducked around the path past the tavern to avoid him. He liked Varric. But Varric paid him too much attention. Asking how he was, offering to tell him stories—it was hard to observe, to read him, when he was trying to avoid being read himself._

_A curt nod to Leliana as their eyes met, the only one who didn’t unsettle him with that odd insistence on treating him like a person, a quick reroute to resist the temptation to go talk to Solas on up the hill, and then almost like teleporting he was inside the chantry doors, collapsing against them as they shut with a soft sigh of relief._

_No more eyes. Peace._

_“My Lord Trevelyan?”_

_Josephine. Josephine had eyes._

_He broke into a wide grin as his lids fluttered open on that familiar, lovely face, both because he liked Josephine too and because she made that crawling, nervous feeling break out over his skin once more and smiling was his automatic response to nerves. “Hello.”_

_She was wearing a simpler dress this time, a green flowing thing that just barely avoided dusting over the floor beneath them. In her hand she had her trusty clipboard, pressed to her breast almost protectively as she looked over how he was reflexively trying to merge with the wooden door behind him._

_"…Is this a bad time?”_

_He forced himself to relax, though his face muscles were still twinging. “It is not. You just—startled me.”_

_A frown was beginning to crease her features. It never looked right on her. To him she was an excellent diplomat, if only by the fact that displeasing her in small ways felt like an offense against nature. Not that he hadn’t committed his fair share of those already. “You know, you spend more time in here than the house we had set aside for you—is it not to your satisfaction?”_

_He shook his head. “It’s—it’s a perfectly acceptable house.” It was among other houses. Shoved in alongside the refugees. When all was quiet he could hear them talking through the walls, driving him mad as he tried to understand the muffled words. “I just—prefer only to sleep there. It’s quiet in here.”_

_She continued, as though not having heard him, “Because, if there is anything you would like me to change, you need only ask. Given what I know of the Trevelyans I am sure you are accustomed to far more luxurious accommodations—not to mention a better upkept chantry…”_

_"No, no. I—I like that it’s so dilapidated, actually.” She blinked at him, confused, and he fumbled for an explanation that would make sense to someone who wasn’t him. “—I’m sure Cassandra’s told you I’m not religious.”_

_“Ah.” Well-controlled surprise. So Cassandra hadn’t mentioned it. Damn her. “I suppose that does make sense. I’ll…try not to trouble myself over it, then. …There was a matter I wished to speak with you about.”_

_Wracked with longing, he let his eyes wander towards the door to the room that had been set aside for research purposes and all the books inside. Then he smiled pleasantly back at her. “Yes?”_

_She passed her gaze back to her board,_ _a faint frown still creasing her brow._ _“You will soon be starting the trek to Val Royeaux.”_

_His insides curdled at the thought of going to Val Royeaux and having to be on official business the whole time. “Yes.”_

_“I was just thinking, perhaps it would be a good use of my time while you are on the journey to make contact with your family. See if they are willing to provide some sort of assistance to help the Inquisition grow. Even just putting in a good word—”_

_"No.” In her eyes he could see that the denial had come out a little too hastily, and he laughed, swallowing his nerves and standing straight. “I would rather you didn’t. Believe me, Josie, reaching out with my name will close more doors than it’ll open, with the Trevelyans.”_

_“I see. I…shall not press the matter, then.” Which would have been a relief if she didn’t immediately follow it up with, “May I ask why? Your family is quite a large one. And while I wasn’t terribly keen on prying into their affairs when I was younger, I do not recall hearing of any strife…”_

_“Oh, there was no strife. I took all of it. That was my job.” He grinned perfectly, eyes just a little bit wider than they should be. “My family got along famously because of me. ‘I might have embarrassed Father at the dinner last Sunday but my at least I’m not Lexy, reading about Avvar shamans during scripture’.”_

_The expected blank stare did not come. Instead, Josephine’s eyes drooped with compassion, and he immediately regretted saying any of it at all. “I’m sorry to hear that.”_

_“No—” His voice stumbled, grin growing more plastered on and less genuine. “I’m joking, Josephine.” It was just funny because it was true. “Though I did engage in a fair bit of acting out when they pushed me to be a Templar.”_

_She didn’t seem entirely convinced, but that awful look was gone from her face, at least. He jittered out of the way to let her through when she walked closer, close enough to smell perfume that was sweet and just a touch too cloying for comfort. Her slender fingers rested on the old chantry wood as she turned to give him a parting remark._

_“Perhaps the door is not as closed as you may think. Who knows? Your family is quite faithful. You may profess not to believe, but you can’t deny the religious power the Inquisition already wields. Perhaps they will hear of your exploits and seek to reach out on their own.”_

_His smile was now entirely fake. “Perhaps.”_

 

After stumbling through the Eluvian back in Skyhold, pretty much everyone who had been present at the Well of Sorrows ended up being subjected to interrogations and grilling by Leliana, Cullen, and Josephine about what the hell had actually happened out there in the Arbor Wilds and how they had ended up inside the fortress weeks ahead of schedule without passing the main gate.

All of them except Morrigan, who changed herself into a crow and hid among the messenger birds.

Trevelyan had been very happy to explain what he’d seen, but it seemed that in his residual eagerness and excitement he spent far too much time talking about the jaw-dropping mosaics and religious rituals that _actually did something,_ and not enough time talking about Corypheus, and the Well, and all the other things he didn’t really understand or have a firm enough grasp of to give adequate detail on.

Once he’d contributed all the knowledge he could, he took to pacing in his room and staring at nothing, trying to make sense of what he could not articulate, what had lingered in the wake of their discovery. His elation punctured.

They sent healers to look at him, but there was nothing physically wrong with him. They sent him up food, and he only ate half of it. He left only at night when all others were asleep, only to give his restless wandering a change in scenery. At all hours he was exhausted, but he barely slept. It simply didn’t come to him. He replayed events over and over in his mind, trying to understand what he was stuck on.

A week had gone by.

No word yet on their forces that had been left behind.

When one of Leliana’s messengers interrupted him attempting an afternoon nap to tell him that Morrigan, who had still been scarce herself, had jumped through the Eluvian, he was immediately wide awake and sprinting down to the gardens.

If Trevelyan had known that trekking through after her would have resulted in meeting something that he refused to believe was a deity but nonetheless stood in giddy awe of, well—he would have picked out a nicer outfit to wear for the trip than the leathers he wore around Skyhold.

If he had known that going through the Eluvian would have taken him to the Fade, he would have grabbed some light armor and weaponry with him.

If he had known—

Well. He didn’t know. He never did, until it happened.

It was strange—he’d been in here for maybe twenty minutes now, since he’d first stepped in. Assuming his perception of time was correct, anyway. Some of him was still tingling and trembling the way it had been earlier in the presence of real power, of something ancient and unyielding and _true_. He didn’t want to return until the feeling went away, because feelings of this nature didn’t belong in Skyhold, in a place of sanctuary and people. Especially not when he’d started this whole mess full of thoughts of possibly being betrayed and how he might best kill a mage of Morrigan’s caliber should he need to.

And yet. Nothing had come to attack him. Nothing sought to take advantage of his vulnerable state, his lack of weapons.

It was beautiful in here, it really was. Adamant had been a poor introduction, indeed, its realm twisted by violence, grief, and hatred. The Fade was not all rock and demons; it was curled and warped statues and violet-stained flowers, too. …Albeit, ones that snapped at his hand when he got too close. Nothing came out to harm him, nothing sought to possess his body, the only spark for his wariness being curious little wisps who observed him just a bit longer than he was comfortable with.

He could see how one could become enchanted, yes.

Maybe it was only people who walked into the Fade looking for a fight who found one.

Bits of Skyhold peppered the landscape. Morrigan and Kieran had long since left for the real one, but Trevelyan remained and observed. Places he recognized drifted about him—but places that looked dramatically different from how he remembered. Shaped by the emotions of those who lived and worked there, they were almost unrecognizable in form but infinitely more appropriate in sensation. He basked.

And then, like that, he had forgotten which way the Eluvian was.

“Oh shit. Fuck.”

There was no fear in his voice—he wasn’t having an unpleasant time, after all—but he was painfully aware from experience how quickly a nice outing could turn deadly. All it would take was one particularly strong demon meandering over and then the world would be short one leader capable of sealing rifts. Perhaps Sloth, as Mahariel had told him about.

Or Envy.

 

_They brought Dorian before him as they usually did, chaining his wrists and having him sit. He looked pensive and bored, a carefully crafted expression to hide what was doubtless more anticipatory nerves. Clearly he was expecting interrogations of a more physical persuasion to be happening soon, perhaps distressed that he would be kept wondering when._

_Amusing, that had been at first. As though subtlety wasn’t more effective. As though there was any skill in causing pain, one of humanity’s most thoughtlessly easy activities._

_Despite the late hour Trevelyan’s own nerves were buzzing, leg bouncing erratically under the table. He felt like peeling at the cracked wood, the desire to dismantle carefully kept in check by holding his palms flat against its surface. His cheek stung where it had been slapped merely two hours before, his body itched with unexpressed rage. Tonight, he was a pile of gunpowder, and he yearned for a match._

_The lights were dim but he could still take in every detail of Dorian’s appearance. There was stubble slowly taking over his chin and jaw, the mustache no longer perfectly curled as it once was. His hair, that had been so crisp and neat, was now beginning to grow in shaggy curls over his head. The kohl that he’d worn around his eyes had long since run and faded._

_Oh, but he was still so beautiful. If Trevelyan had possessed an ounce less self control he would have liked to hold the man by his sculpted jaw and kiss the beauty mark that sat on the height of his perfect cheekbones. To undo the chains and let him do whatever he wanted with those hands. Even if odds were that what he wanted to do was tear him apart. His eyes looked hungry and dark._

_“I see you’ve elected not to bring your Nightingale,” Dorian observed, bringing him out of his stupor. “I suppose you think I’ll be more talkative if it’s just the two of us.”_

_"I don’t want to talk about the Venatori today.” And though he hadn’t planned on that, he knew it was true._

_Dorian looked surprised. Just for a moment. Just enough to show the emotion was there before he relaxed again, lips curving the way they tended to do when setting that fluttering free in his stomach. “No? And what **does** the Inquisitor want today, pray tell?”_

_Release. Distraction. A way out of sitting in his mind, listening to his mother and brothers berating him in Skyhold’s courtyard over and over until all memory of his family was no more than a feeling of confused hatred and weakness._

_His mouth seemed to move of its own accord. “I want to talk to you.” Just narrowly did he realize his misstep, fought with himself over whether to correct it or not._

_“Me?” The man who sat across from him was dangerous, he had to keep reminding. They were both dangerous, but where Trevelyan had to keep his knives sheathed lest he ruin what he was trying to establish between them, Dorian could feel free to lash out at any time. He had no investment in playing nice. “Feeling lonely for my company, are we?”_

_He paused, finding his distance again, too late. More business-like, he added, “I prefer to have Leliana along for regular interrogations, and she is currently indisposed.”_

_"Ah.” Those teeth, those marvelously white, perfect teeth, were starting to make him nervous in their flashing his way. “Is there some ‘talk to the prisoner’ quota that requires you be down here anyway?”_

_He felt flimsy and easy to see through, and said nothing. His cheek twitched._

_The chuckle at his expense felt sharp, but he liked that sharpness. It helped him stay out of his head, focused some of his fire._

_The buckles on Dorian’s clothing sparkled when he rolled his shoulders. “Oh, very well. Very well. What shall we discuss? Shall I bore you with a treatise on my work with time magic? No, I think that would be too complex for your feeble Southern mind to comprehend…”_

_Magic. Ostwick. **You were meant to be a Templar, the least you could do is--**_

_His fists clenched. Dorian noticed, and despite not knowing the why, switched without missing a beat, “Perhaps you would be more interested in hearing about my time slumming in Minrathous, hopping from brothel to brothel.”_

_All of it would be interesting if his mind wasn’t so damnably foggy. “Are they the same in Tevinter as they are everywhere else?”_

_An eyebrow raised. “Brothels?”_

_“No. People.”_

_The abruptness of the question seemed to take Dorian aback. He kept hiding it. Gnawed at by frustration, Trevelyn would tear off the mask Dorian was so obviously wearing if he wasn’t certain that in his current state he’d tear up the rest of him too. “That’s a very broad question.”_

_He knee was dangerously close to rattling the table. “It’s a yes or no question.”_

_“You are asking **me** ,” Dorian began after a rebuffed look, and Trevelyan’s gaze fixated on the way his lips moved when he spoke. “Even though I know from intel that one of the Chargers is also Tevinter. So, what is it about my particular expertise that appeals to you, hm?” He didn’t wait for an answer, stroking his neglected mustache and looking upward. “Let’s see…I’m a member of Tevinter’s more depraved underbelly…and I’m an altus…More handsome too, I can assume…”_

_Altus. Mage. **–bring her home so she can be responsible for herself--**          _

_The wood of the table was spared his nails clawing at it solely by the fact that there were gloves on his hands._

_Dorian stopped talking._

_Trevelyan pointed at the ceiling, thinking again of his mother and brothers in the courtyard. “Those people. They’ve carried on their whole lives without a single thought for anything but their own righteousness.” Gesturing broadly then at the whole of Skyhold. “Now they come here, pay lip service to the Inquisition, to me, and why? Not because they’ve changed. But because they want something.”_

_“Ah,” he heard across the table, thoughtful tapping with nails that had at one point been clean and neatly trimmed. “You mean **those** kinds of people. Oh yes, they’re the same in Tevinter. Worse, even.”_

_Somewhere inside him a voice demanded he shut up. He tossed it aside, bangs hanging low over his face. “Hypocrites. They always have the breath to lecture me on being too cold, too callous, too cruel. And then none to spare for any understanding for—for anyone who isn’t **them**.”_

_For their children._

_\-- **and atone for her crimes and master her curse in the eyes of the Maker--**_

_The rational part of his mind tried to reign the feeling in, and what that achieved was that instead of an angry, low growl, what came out was more of a snort._

_\-- **instead of allowing heresy like you’ve always done, you ungrateful, spoiled child.**_

_His head ached. And then he remembered himself, and it grew clear._

_“They all behave exactly as I have always expected them to. I should be pleased, to be correct.”_

_The curious lilt of Dorian’s voice in response was alarming and also oddly soothing. “Are these people who were close to you?” No, Dorian was not supposed to be examining him. It was not supposed to go the other way around._

_Trevelyan waved his hand dismissively. “No. Barely acquaintances at this point. Just more selfish nobles with a selfish favor to ask.” It shouldn’t sting to say out loud, but somehow it did, and he paused to cough into his fist. “They’ll be gone by next morning. I suppose I just…needed somewhere for all of this to…to go.”_

_“Ah, and thus you came to vent in my available ear. Not eager to let your adoring followers witness you having a temper? I quite understand.” Eyes dark and thoughtful, his prisoner was watching him. There was an almost lupine curve to his shoulders as he bent forward, a keen alertness in his expression. “Still, I would be wary about letting your guard down around a Tevinter, dear Inquisitor. You’re likely to be preyed upon.”_

_Trevelyan’s leg stilled._

_“Prey?”_

_That bubbling, fluttery feeling returned fully to his chest._

_And a strange, delightful jolt of panic, too._

_Oh, it was a mistake to do this._

_His teeth shone in the dim, flickering fire as he smiled._

_“I think you’ll find that my guard is more for your protection than mine.”_

“Alexiel?”

He whirled. Between wavering blue fires and wispy red spirits drifting aimlessly through craggy rocks stood Dorian, the real one, studs and clasps on his leathers glittering dangerously in the fractured light.

The two of them hadn’t seen much of each other since the Temple. Trevelyan had been too busy pacing a circle into his floor. Dorian had been doing research. That’s what he’d told him. Research and coming to terms with himself. That was how he’d put it.

He looked as appealing as he always did, which was to say that if he was actually a Desire demon, the world was doomed for sure. From experience Trevelyan knew that Dorian’s lovely eyes were picture windows into his soul, and oh how concerned and angry they looked now. A kind of mother hen-like crease to his brow as he walked forward, like talking to an errant child about to swat a hornet’s nest.

“When Leliana’s little guard told me you’d run into the Eluvian into the Fade alone, I thought they must have been mistaken. ‘No no, he’s been in the Fade before, knows how dangerous it is, he wouldn’t be _that_ stupid’. Evidently I was wrong.”

“Dorian…” The insult would have angered him at least a little, but _there_ he was holding the stick in his hand, still wanting to watch the nest fly far away with wasps tumbling out of it. --Sera would have been proud. _I ran in after Morrigan,_ he should have said, _I was looking for her son._ Or maybe even, _I just met a real god_. They’d both find that interesting. Instead, though, he clumsily defended himself with, “I actually like the Fade.”

That earned him a scornful laugh, mocking yet warm and pleasant to the ears. “You _like_ the Fade? The last time you were here, you almost got killed by yours truly and eaten by a giant spider.”

What was there for Trevelyan to do but shyly look away? “I learned a lot back then. It was a learning experience.”

Dorian responded with a dismissive wave. “Your elf hedge mage has rubbed off on you, I see.”

“Well, it’s not like I had the intention of sightseeing.” He gestured. At what, he wasn’t sure. Controlling his speech had gotten easier but in its place his body language was malfunctioning. “Morrigan ran in here, and I pursued. Apparently, her son had gone wandering. All set right now.”

“Well, yes, that certainly explains why you _came in_. It doesn’t explain why you’re still lingering here in this Maker-forsaken death world.” There was curiosity in those eyes, he could see it. But there was tension there too, and Trevelyan thought to himself that it looked strange and discomfiting. Dorian shouldn’t be afraid for anything.

“If you dislike this place so much then what are you doing in here, Dorian?”

“Looking for _you_ , daft creature.” A smile quirked on his lips, tilting his face so that his brows hung low over his eyes. “I do notice when you’re gone, you know.”

Warmth blossomed inside his chest, sudden and tight. Without even realizing he was doing it, he began adjusting the fit of his glove on each finger. “Do you.”

The smile grew to a leer—just a quick one, just enough to serve as a reply. Then Dorian sighed. “I also would be remiss if I did not inform you that your circle of compatriots have returned. They’re—”

“What?” Trevelyan stepped up to him without thinking, grabbing his arms and causing the man to stiffen slightly in surprise. “All of them? They’re all back?”

“Yes. –Yes, everyone regrouped and arrived together. Your army is still behind, of course, but—"

“Were they hurt? Everyone’s—still in one piece, right?” He’d missed it. They’d all come back to safety, back to where he could reassure himself that they were still real, and he’d _missed_ it.

A slow, beautiful sneer made its way over Dorian’s face. “Oh, I see. So _that’s_ why you’ve been brooding all this time.”

He jolted, letting go of his arms. “I have not—I have not been brooding.”

It was clear he was not being convincing. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell them about you miserably sulking in your room waiting for them to come home. Though I can’t promise your spirit friend won’t do that.” For a moment Trevelyan was struck with imagining that very scenario, and though he didn’t think he was showing anything outwardly, Dorian laughed and brushed a thumb over his cheek, tugging slightly on his lip. “Come now, don’t make that face. I think it’s adorable. The Inquisitor has a heart after all.”

Well. That simply left him speechless.

In the silence, Dorian continued, turning to lead him back through the raw Fade to the Eluvian. “Varric suggested a game of Wicked Grace. Celebrate the fact that we’re all alive after that mess. I’m certain it would bring down the mood considerably if I had to go back and tell them that you couldn’t make it because you tripped and impaled yourself on imaginary rock.”

Pink grass sprouted underfoot as he walked, and as the lights of the Eluvian made its way into his field of vision, twinkling and opalescent, Trevelyan found himself humming.

 

Everyone was there. Well, almost everyone. Vivienne and Solas had elected not to attend, which was disappointing save for that it was what he had expected of them. He was able to stop by and see Vivienne at least before they got to the tavern, see her unhurt and unruffled but pleased for his concern (which told him it was wanted, and made him smile a bit more as they left). Josephine and Cullen had joined the game in their stead. Cullen was not the kind of man he would generally play cards with, but Trevelyan had to hold himself back from cackling when Josephine announced to the room that she “wasn’t sure she remembered how to play”.

Sera brought chocolate chip cookies, and he found himself sneaking them periodically through the game every time his eyes wandered their way. And when they were gone, she slapped his hand when he tried to take one from Rainier in lieu of his coin. Iron Bull had brought the smoldering, burning liquor water that he’d shared after their first dragon hunt, and when one small shot glass worth proved too much for everyone present (except Dorian), Varric ordered them all a round of beers.

Cole mumbled to himself through his losing hands, though despite Dorian’s predictions he said nothing of Trevelyan’s state the week previous. Only—

“ _Light and bubbled and free_ , can I use tarts instead of money this round? Cassandra wants them. _Everything is right and I am happy._ ”

Cassandra stuck her burning face in her cards and said nothing. Trevelyan peeked over her shoulder and saw she was struggling not to smile.

No one fought. They told each other stories, tales that on their own wouldn’t have elicited so much as a chuckle but now were so funny it hurt to breathe. He told them how he ruined his aunt’s best dress and put an Antivan opera house out of commission for an entire month, and no one gave him funny looks or stared in confusion. He talked and they listened, and they smiled.

And for once, Trevelyan spent an evening in the company of people who knew him and didn’t become overcome with the urge to leave.

Eventually, with the players winding down and the coin running dry, he did have to call it a night. His head was beginning to ache with the late hour, and he could feel a dim stiffness from sitting bent over the creaky old chairs looking at his hand and trying not to let Josephine catch him off guard like she had Cullen, currently bereft of his entire first layer of clothing. There were one or two calls for him to stay, but he just grinned at them and stood, pausing to let the blood flow through his body again.

Dorian seemed to have difficulty keeping his eyes off of him as he walked out.

Trevelyan hid himself along the bushes by the battlements, resting against the cool stone out of the warm light of the tavern. His face felt flushed with laughter and merriment, and though he’d nursed the same half-empty drink all night a part of him was undeniably intoxicated. Energy was tingling through his body, coursing joy that pressed him for an outlet.

It didn’t take long for Dorian to leave the game as well. Though hard to see in the dim light there was a smile on his face, soft and gentle, like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to make that expression. Trevelyan watched him from the shadows, baring teeth, and followed quietly behind.

There was a lithe grace to the way the mage walked, a relaxed ease to his steps that was nonetheless swift with purpose. He gave no sign that he noticed he was being pursued, climbing up the steps to the hold proper using the side stairs near the battlements instead of the exposed central path. He would light nearby torches as he approached them with a wave of his hand, and then extinguish them as he passed.

Soft _fwoom, swish_. It made him giddy.

Before too much longer they reached the main hall, and then—

\--Dorian turned left instead of right.

Blood raced in his veins as he tagged behind, enjoying the role of voyeur, the way Dorian had started to fuss with his clothing as he walked. Every little movement sparked another fire, every little noise eroded away at his self-control, until finally just as he’d passed into the seclusion of the stairwell door that led to Skyhold’s highest tower, Trevelyan jumped him, pressing him firmly against the wall and eagerly putting their mouths together.

He felt more than heard a soft rumble of surprise and a tensing of the body touching his. Some insignificant part of himself shivered in sudden insecurity before the embrace was returned, one hand passing through his hair and the other squeezing his hip. There was nothing but the sound of his heartbeat, the sweep of tongue on his lips, and the awful constriction of his own clothing acting as barrier between him and the physical sensation he craved.

When they finally parted it was with each a soft gasp, Trevelyan saying the first words that popped into his head, trying to fight the dopey grin off his face. “Is your own room not to your satisfaction, Pavus?”

Rather than a reply, he could feel Dorian breathlessly chuckling against his skin. He pulled back a little to get a better look at him; hair disheveled, pupils wide, mouth still slightly open. There was that dark look, that _peel you apart_ look, the one that set him fully ablaze.

“And here I was thinking _I_ would surprise _you_ ,” Dorian breathed, scratching the back of his scalp and making his eyelids shudder. “You wicked man. Next time you sneak up on me like that I might have to retaliate.”

“I was going to wait for you to get back to your quarters,” Trevelyan murmured, leaning in as though just barely resisting the urge to kiss him again. “I was going to be very considerate and smooth about it. You would have found it very charming.”

The way Dorian’s voice dropped into a purr was some sort of sin against the Maker, he was sure. “Couldn’t help yourself, could you?”

“My room is too far away,” he protested, a kind of anguish in his voice that was quickly smothered as Dorian tugged him closer again by the lapels of his jacket. He added, voice growing rougher as his lips were returned to him, mind becoming little more than a fine mist, “It doesn’t matter where. My room. Your room. The middle of the courtyard. Just as long as you’re there.

Dorian snarled. “Shut up before I take you right here on the stairs. Then you _will_ be sorry.”

Trevelyan laughed in delight, before allowing his breath to be swallowed down once more.

Up the stairs they went, stumbling and eager and fingers catching on each other’s clothing the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter up is one that is, thankfully, complete! But I finished it some time ago, so I’ll be putting it through a bit of revision to make sure it’s ready. Guarantee it will not take as long as this update did.


	15. Not After But Before

The veil of sleep was heavy enough over Dorian’s mind that his first moment awake was spent wondering where he was.

He was not in his room, early morning light streaming in from both large windows and the balcony instead of the pitch black he usually awoke to, walls far enough away that there was no risk of him knocking his head by rolling out on the wrong side of the bed. The mattress under him was comfortable for a change, and his naked body was draped in a soft blanket instead of the heavy, scratchy wool thing he’d been forced to put up with so far. There was the heat of a warm body beside him, and he gently propped himself up to inspect his yet sleeping bedmate even as his memory rushed back to him.

Skin as pale as death, hair as black as pitch, strong shoulders and nose as straight as an arrow—

He remembered a rush up the stairs to the Inquisitor’s quarters. He remembered being dizzy with desire and being desired, remembered the pop and rattle of belts and clasps being undone. He remembered a mouth on his skin, eager insistent and warm, a body flush against him as he raked his nails over well-developed shoulder blades.

_He was shoved against the wall as the door slammed shut, barely able to breathe as their lips connected again. Gone was the stuttery, nervous shyness that had greeted his earlier attempts at intimacy. Trevelyan moved with the assuredness of the hunter he was, keeping one of Dorian’s arms pinned against the wall with one hand and the other holding him firmly by the jaw, a faint tingling of heat seeping through the glove. From the noises he was making he was half expecting to be devoured right there, and wasn’t that a delicious thought._

_With his free hand, Dorian blindly worked buttons and fabric until Trevelyan’s upper body was largely bared to him, scratching his fingers over one pectoral and making the man draw back just slightly with a small gasp of surprise. His muscles were firm instead of toned, the kind of body that was less for show and more for application; a shudder passed through him when he thought of it being applied to himself. When Dorian started moving to undo his own clothing, the complicated straps and interlocking parts, Trevelyan intervened to try it on his own._

_Something about how he managed it, brief moments of slow inspection followed by quick and decisive movements, had Dorian breathing harder by the time enough of him was exposed for those bruised lips to start kissing appreciatively over his chest. Loving attention was paid to his scars, particularly those that Trevelyan had caused himself. Sharp teeth nipped down his body, never enough pressure to break skin, exciting in the threat that they could._

His stomach twisted nervously. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, him laying here in this room that didn’t belong to him, with this man who _also_ didn’t belong to him. It was supposed to be an exchange. Like telling someone thank you and then going on your way. Only that. Though even as the thought came to him he could recognize its foolishness.

The fun had passed by all too quickly, something for his whole life he had hoped would last but never lingered on in the morning. He was left only with a hollow ache, the _knowing_ or at least _suspecting_ that this would end the way it always did. The only question was how long it would take Trevelyan to wake up.

They’d exhausted themselves pretty thoroughly, at least.    

_A slight push had been enough to send Trevelyan tumbling over the bed, jerking back as though on reflex when Dorian reached for his gloves and compensating by tugging him down to his level. They’d kissed again, as though by necessity, hands wandering, trying to find their way through touch alone. Dorian found quickly enough that he rather liked the feel of leather on his sensitive skin._

_Found it was surprisingly easy, once the rest of their clothing was no longer an issue, to make their talkative Inquisitor lose all ability to form words. To make the atheist cry out for a god he didn’t believe in. Trevelyan had told him he’d done this before—but evidently not with partners who actually knew what they were doing, if his reactions were to be taken at face value._

_Some of that familiar, wavering insecurity passed back over the man’s face, a look of pure indecision. Dorian kissed him again, one hand supporting himself and the other moving to rest on his chest. He appeared to surrender, and did so quite easily._

_So easily that Dorian was stunned when he found himself suddenly being flipped over, pressing against the mattress with another body weighing him down, gleaming smile and wild eyes above him. Then it was him gasping, voice cracking. Teeth on his neck again, gently moving along his pulse points as his head was thrown back against the pillows, and he briefly entertained the notion that if they were fighting Trevelyan could simply tear out his jugular this way and that would be that._

_He heard a question murmured in his ear, and a pleased and strangled assent slipped from his lips. The rumbling, predatory growl against his skin that followed filled him with both fear and delight--_

He'd fallen asleep, after.

He hadn't meant to do that. His intention, the implicit agreement that he had assumed between them, was that after they'd surpassed the innuendo, let the subtext become text, Dorian would slink back to his quarters as though the whole thing had never happened. Let their relationship remain in the realm of rumor and remembered only at the bottom of a bottle like all the rest.

Only, he'd been so tired, and it had been so nice and warm in his arms…

He liked it there. It felt bizarrely comfortable and safe, like maybe when his partner awoke he wouldn’t have to come up with some elaborate gesture to save face, wouldn’t have to pretend that he wasn’t crushed or hollowed out or disappointed. It was a feeling that he needed to fight, because only naïve idiots thought that way.

This was the stupidest, most foolish thing he could have done, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember what had possessed him to do it. Something in the way their eyes had met, or…

Oh, but it all had felt so _good_ , after.

_He’d lain there, gasping for breath and utterly spent, and for every carefully made bite mark on his body there was a kiss. When he was finally able to move enough to look he saw Trevelyan over him, expression tensed somewhat in concentration, as though the worshipful attention he was giving required careful consideration. What exactly he’d said as he rolled over, Dorian didn’t remember._

_He did remember the sweetness with which the man had held him and pressed his lips down on his face, the soft way he’d uttered his name._

And it occurred to Dorian that he had been kissed by many men, on various places on his body, but nowhere that had felt as intimate as his forehead in the fresh afterglow of consummated passion.

" _Kaffas_ ," he muttered to himself, quiet enough that Trevelyan wouldn't stir. It would be easier, wouldn’t it, to just be a toy after all. He wouldn't be pleased--it would hurt endlessly to be that cheap, after all this, after everything. But it would be familiar at least, and it wouldn't leave him adrift and confused and wondering. He should have insisted on getting this out of the way earlier, when there weren't obvious _feelings_ there. Now he was going to get hurt no matter what he did.

He had seen the Inquisitor take to battle with merciless glee, watched him snap necks and disembowel with a look that could only be described as overwhelmed joy. Dorian had, in fact, felt the sting of his arrows and the cold steel of his blade against his throat, known the unexpected fear of looking into his eyes and seeing a hungry monster behind them. And yet, when the aggressive rush of their initial coupling was over he had held Dorian with such gentleness, and whispered a clumsy litany of adoration as he’d been lulled to sleep.

Maybe it was the Free Marches. Their biggest entertainment was a big tournament where they smacked on each other with swords, after all. And racing greased cheese wheels down a hill. There was really no accounting for sanity there.

But then there was that damnable question.

What if this was different?

After a moment he sat up completely, facing the window as light spilled through terrible beige curtains too thin to really do their job. Let him sleep. And until he awoke put aside that question of _what if_ for later.

In the mad dash to beat Corypheus to the well, the harried escape through the Eluvian back to Skyhold, and then the interviews and planning that had come afterward, he’d been ruminating far too much on what he’d learned at the Temple of Mythal. The history that had been revealed to him. A part of him scarcely wanted to believe that Tevinter could have ever been just scavengers of another country's legacy, instead of the terrible but great conquerors that they touted themselves as. That part of him was a weak and bitter patch of darkness amid all the light that had filled him since Adamant.

He sighed, wiped a hand over his face, and quietly killed it.

Tevinter was not some great empire. They were upstarts who got lucky, plunderers of someone else’s miracles. No one wanted to learn that their parents were rats, but that was just the way of the world and he would get over it.

It wasn't important that they be lords over all the world to fix it--that was where the Venatori got it wrong, where Alexius had gotten it wrong. It was just important that they be _better._ It was important that they stop letting their faults consume them, waving them off as the price of power when it was the reason the world hated them, the reason most of their own citizens hated each other, the reason they were worn down little by little each year.

Dorian had known that, a long time ago. How long had it taken to learn that again? He cringed at all the time he’d wasted, head full of thoughts that weren’t his.

He looked enviously at Trevelyan, still resting, face slack and pushed slightly into the pillow. There was no hardness there, none of the stone grimness that told of difficult decisions or the vicious glee that accompanied the slaughter of enemies. He was peaceful. Relaxed.

It would be very easy to kill him, right then. The idea entered his mind unbidden, an intrusive consideration. It wouldn’t even take magic to do—just a well placed knife. Or one of the pillows, if they were sturdy enough.

Dorian shuddered. His chest ached to see such vulnerability. It was terrifying, having feelings for someone, especially someone who had an almost suicidal penchant for getting himself into dangerous situations.

He stood with intention to locate his clothes and be gone. The dip in the mattress must have finally caused Trevelyan to awaken, because as he looked back with his underthings in hand he saw that his eyes had snapped open, the deep green fixed right on Dorian.

“Damn,” came the groggy voice.

Time slowed to a few scattered, skipping heartbeats, like he’d cast an acceleration spell on everything but himself. The moment held there, keeping him hostage, stilling his tongue and freezing all the thoughts in his head save for one that pounded away at his skull.

But Trevelyan merely smiled and reached, gloved fingers wrapping around his wrist and easily breaking the magic. His bangs were sticking to the skin of his forehead. “You woke up first. I’d been hoping to watch you sleep.”

“How nauseating,” Dorian remarked, though the timid smile that spread on his face took the bite out of his comment.

“I am sure,” Trevelyan said slowly, sitting up just a little, just enough that the blanket slid slightly down his back, though maintaining his grip, “That you look positively adorable when you’re relaxed. I’m sure it’s one of those sad truths of the world, because _you_ will _never_ be able to see it.”

That turned the smile into a wry smirk. “Now you’re just teasing. I’m glad to have deprived you of the sight, then.”

“Do you have somewhere to be?”

He opened his mouth, though only strangled noises came out. He was in the middle of leaving, wasn’t he? Were things to be different here? Was it more taboo to slip away in the morning than to overstay one’s welcome? It was completely unfamiliar ground.

After only a brief moment of impatient waiting, Trevelyan continued, “No, I know you don’t. Why not rest here a little longer?”

“I’ve had a great deal of rest.” It would have been easy to pull away. To resume his task of getting covered up and presentable for his customary walk of shame. “And I’ve been told I’m not great company in the morning.”

“I think that’s something I can judge for myself.”

He made a little helpless, frustrated noise. "Really, I--should be going. I'll just--"

"Stay."

It wasn't phrased like a command, but Dorian fell back against the bed with little resistance with the slightest tug on his arm. His limbs felt like jelly, and his stomach was fluttering. "People are going to talk," he protested weakly. Not because it bothered him. But because he was sure the costs weren’t being weighed properly here.

Trevelyan chuckled, tracing his jaw lightly. "People have already been talking. You told me that yourself."

“Yes, but now they actually have something to talk about.”

“Good. I’m tired of the things they make up. I like this better.” And just like that, none of it mattered. He moved in, and with very little protest Dorian allowed his mouth to be occupied.

But then he had to ask. “So this is—this is going to be a…real thing, is it?”

“As opposed to a _fake_ thing?”

“As opposed to a single night of fun, after which we go our separate…” The incredulous look on the Inquisitor’s face tied up his tongue. He tried again, stuttering more than he would like, “Well, you know, just, releasing…tension.”

“You still seem rather tense.”

“Funny. Usually sex has the opposite effect on me.” For a moment it seemed almost like he was going to be pulled into a warm embrace, and he resisted, sitting up. Trevelyan stayed where he was, watching carefully. “I suppose I’m having more trouble than usual with…wondering. With questions.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Dorian,” Trevelyan said smoothly, lightly tracing his hand over Dorian’s thigh. “But answering questions is one of the stipulations of my job.”

“Oh, very well. I can’t hold up to your scrutiny.” It still took a moment. Why it made him so nervous, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t like he was expecting to get a knife in his side at this stage of the game. But when those wandering fingers moved up to his hip, some part of him shrank back in anticipation. “I…I like you.”

That provoked a laugh. Not promising. “I like you too. I’m glad we’ve established that, Dorian. I rather thought the sex made that clear.”

“I don’t mean like _that_.” At Dorian’s words the other man made that curious little cautious _stare_ , smile drooping, and he had to clarify, “I mean, yes, like that. I liked _that_ a lot. But I’m talking…I…”

It shouldn’t be so hard. Did the fact that it was mean that it was ill-advised?

Trevelyan was still watching, that unsettling focus making his insides squirm.

“It’s not like…I-in _Tevinter_ …”

He couldn’t.

Saying it out loud to a man who he had seen coo over animals before gutting them just felt too foolish.

He looked down at the small weight that had migrated up to resting on his shoulder and gave a dramatic groan instead. “--You’re still wearing the gloves.”

Trevelyan startled, attention now focused entirely on his withdrawing hand and something that looked rather suspiciously like self-consciousness. “I thought you li--What’s wrong with having gloves on?”

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but the entire rest of you is naked.” Dorian petulantly tugged at the fingers, but Trevelyan snatched his hand away before he could manage to lift the offending material. “You know that we’ve just been about as intimate as two people can be, and I still don’t know what your mark looks like outside of the extra light it gives off when you’re opening rifts?”

It was entirely possible that these feelings he was having, the moving in his gut, was not reciprocated. It was entirely possible that Trevelyan was not earnest, but rather just not…careful. Falling to the heat of the moment, a victim of poor impulse control. A man who played at love like he played at being a hero.

“Well I—” He gave a confused look down at his hands, blinking. “I—I don’t like touching things, that’s all. Tactile sensations and all that. My fingers are sensitive.”

Dorian narrowed his eyes just a little.

“I do recall,” he said, lazily looking down at his nails to hide the appreciative shudder of remembering. “That you took at least one of them off while we were…indisposed together, when I was conveniently unable to see you.”

“I did?”

“To touch my back. My shoulder blades, specifically.”

Trevelyan swallowed and said only, “I just really like your shoulder blades.”

“I see.” Dorian paused, plucking at the leather again. “There’s also the fact that you often wear fingerless gloves.”

Another slow blink. “Ah. Well, that’s, uh—”

“You’re not actually that good at lying, are you?” Dorian chuckled, watching him squirm. Why was his own heart beating so loud? “You can trick people into thinking certain things about you but if anyone pokes at you point blank you just crumble.”

“What a very cruel thing to say to me, Dorian.”

“It’s rather adorable,” he purred, and was rewarded with a fond and surprised blush. For a man with such pale skin that didn’t seem to happen as often as it should. “Out with it then. Is it the anchor? –No, it can’t be the anchor, that’s only on one of your hands.”

“It’s not the anchor,” Trevelyan confirmed, pausing. “I. I don’t like people seeing my knuckles.”

“And why not?”

And if there was one thing he was certain of somewhere inside himself, it was that they were going to die soon, the two of them. Some foolish part of him was still hoping, and he had to struggle to keep it contained. To distract it, and then quietly get rid of it. Not indulge it.

“They’re…very scarred.”

So it was silly to care so much anyway, to wonder what it was they were, if they were anything at all.

But then, interrogating someone on their habits wasn’t proper etiquette for a casual fling, either.

“Scars? Can I see?” Dorian didn’t wait for a response, going to take the glove off of Trevelyan’s hand with minimal resistance this time. His left one.

The first thing that drew his attention was the green light that poured from under the fabric as he slipped it off, but he resisted the urge to flip over to his palm to inspect it, at least for now; _one_ of them knew how to resist his curiosity, after all. At once he could see the mottling of the skin, slightly darkened and evidently torn many times from what looked to be repeated, strong blows. The wounds were old—faded, at least a little. The marks looked severe enough that it briefly made Dorian wonder at how he could manage such delicate finger work as picking locks and the like. But perhaps the permanent damage didn’t extend to bone or muscle.

When he glanced up to Trevelyan’s eyes he saw a carefully neutral expression, searching. What was he dreading? A tasteless insult? These scars were no different than all the others that now littered his form, at least in appearance. But it was apparent to him that something was expected of him, and something entirely different was _hoped_ of him.

Dorian was Tevinter, and glossing over vulnerability—even another person’s—was an art form he’d grown very practiced in.

“…So much fuss over these? Frankly I’m a touch underwhelmed, Inquisitor,” he said finally, moving to gently kiss the scarring. Feel the strange texture of the rough skin against his lips, how none of the wounds had quite healed the same. He felt Trevelyan release a tremulous sigh as he did so, flipping the hand over and appraising the bright, glowing gash that made the philosopher inside him burn with questions. “I’m much more intrigued by this particular marking here.”

“Habit. That’s all it is, I promise,” he amended quietly. It sounded a little bit like another lie. “From pampered nobles with soft hands making a big deal about them, and how I got them. I either receive cloying, ungenuine sympathy or disdain, and it gets…tiresome. So I hide them.”

Dorian flipped his knuckles back into view, though still lightly tracing his finger over the Inquisitor’s palm and feeling the way it overstimulated the nerves, like lightning. “How did you get them, for curiosity’s sake?”

Relief seemed to have melted whatever was tying Trevelyan’s tongue, and he spoke more freely. “When I was growing up, the Chantry mothers didn’t care for my taste in books, and being irreverent, and telling them what I really thought about the Maker, and…etcetera. I don’t know what punishments are like in the Tevinter Chantry, but in Ostwick…They’re very religious in Ostwick.”

He didn’t clarify any further. He didn’t really need to.

Dorian snorted. “And so my prejudices about the South remain unchallenged.”

Trevelyan responded with that clumsy, hitching laugh.

While he pulled his hand back to slide the glove back on, Dorian tried hard not to imagine a Bann’s boy with eccentric tastes running around with bloody knuckles and being shoved into corners and kept late after his lessons because the Chantry didn’t care for his kind. Tried not to imagine a child chafing against the world he was raised in and the people in it until he was raw, until he then became numb, because—that might make things a bit too personal again.

“Well. That’s enough of my tragic upbringing.” He felt Trevelyan move in once more to softly slide his lips over the side of his face. Then he said, quietly, “I know that I… _appear_ to be easily distracted, but what _are_ things like in Tevinter, pray tell?”

The question might have thrown Dorian, but this time he had the preparedness to say breezily, “We certainly have much more elaborate punishments than striking children for a lack of piety.”

“I think you were going to tell me about _relationships_ in Tevinter, Dorian.”

He turned to look at him fully then, felt the bitterness rise up behind his teeth before he could stop it. “Nobles in Tevinter don’t have _relationships_ , Trevelyan. They _breed_. They dedicate their every effort to distilling all their best traits into the strongest mage, and anything that does not contribute to this goal is considered deviant, and best treated only as a shameful indulgence. So, what we’re doing now? This—last night—would be the extent of it. It would be tolerated no further.”

“Because I’m not a mage.”

“Because you’re—” He stared for a moment, seeing the smile that the other man was trying so hard to suppress. And then he chuckled. “Yes, because you’re not a mage. And, of course, one other reason.”

“Oh yes. I’m not Tevinter.” And before Dorian could shoot another smart comment his way, Trevelyan moved to kiss his forehead again, right there in that spot where he had last night, and tingling warmth filled his chest.

It took a little bit of effort to remain as detached in tone now, insides trembling again. “Then of course there’s the fact that most courtship has to be between two parties who hate each other—if my parents’ example is to be followed, of course. Now, you and I did have a period where we were attempting to kill each other, so I suppose that would qualify—”

He stuttered off as Trevelyan erupted in more helpless giggles, breath hot on his neck. It was too warm, too intimate, an arm resting along his back without any particular purpose except to hold him and make him feel grounded. It was dangerous. When Dorian shifted out of the half-hold Trevelyan shot back to alertness again.

Half-heartedly, he offered, “I’m…glad I amuse you.”

Filling their silence was the sound of Skyhold waking up, dimly in the background. Their army had yet to return, so the shouting and sword clashing of training drills was quite absent, but servants shouting orders and chastisements was a permanent fixture.

Eventually, Trevelyan cleared his throat. “In Ostwick…”

“Yes?”

“Well, we—relationships are based on alliances and heirs, primarily. Not as much the actual…breeding. As long as someone’s done their duty to their family, there’s hardly any scandal in pursuing whomever they like for their true affections. All the better if it creates another alliance to their name, even if it’s not on paper.”

“So infidelity is the name of the game, then? How curious.”

“Well, naturally you don’t _marry_ the person you love. Only _paupers_ do that.”

This time it was Dorian’s turn to laugh. Only so that when his eyes got a little misty he could pretend it was just mirth.

“As for—as for me.” Trevelyan paused again, running a hand through his hair. “I was…I was a spare. My parents had already decided that I was to be the one of my litter that they send to the Chantry to cement their piousness in the eyes of the Maker. So marriage was never in the cards for me. Until I took my vows, though, I could be with whomever I wanted.”

“Are you trying to make me envious?” Dorian muttered, the sarcasm in his voice a little weaker than he would have liked.

Trevelyan nudged him reproachfully for the interruption. “My dalliances didn’t stay with me long. I had nothing to inherit. And many found me…off-putting, in private. I was…fine with that. I never liked being around them for long. I told myself I was better alone. I told myself that there was no one out there who had anything to offer me. Anyone I could—"

He paused, frowning more heavily and looking forward, as though trying to read the continuation of his sentence on the wall. Dorian moved to intertwine their fingers, his heart beating painfully fast again.

Trevelyan looked down at their hands, wiggling his fingers as though in reply. “I…like you very much. And I have come to realize that…I was mistaken back then. That is to say, I—that is to say, that _you_ are so much more than just—than just—"

His speech was cut off by Dorian pushing him back down on the bed, kissing him warmly and sifting his fingers through the sweat and sleep mussed hair of his.

Some of the fear in him subsided. Not nearly enough, but some.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on the next chapter--I may end up having to split it in half, depending on how long it ends up being.


	16. Ascension

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always I feel I am a little awkward about feedback, but! I want to take this opportunity to say again that the positive reception this story has gotten has really made the time spent on it worthwhile. We’re getting close to the end here.

Several things happened in quick succession after that morning.

Trevelyan had gotten dressed and gone down to the war room to make it late to a meeting that he’d forgotten, and then while Dorian was trying to work out how to leave his quarters without being seen the ground had started to shake.

Corypheus, it seemed, was not content to give them time to recall their forces after the battle at the Arbor Wilds.

He wasn’t content to wait for his own army, either.

When they had first arrived, Blackwall had taken Trevelyan out to inspect Skyhold’s fortifications on the battlements. For the most part, he had been impressed. The walls were sturdy, well made and standing strong even after having been abandoned for so long. It was unlikely anything could tunnel through them, and the stone extended down to the very foundations of the keep.

One thing though that he had been concerned about was that, should their defenses fail, the many refugees, soldiers, and non-combatant members of their Inquisition had nowhere to run to like they did at Haven. No escape routes, no easy ways out, no places to hide. If Corypheus attacked them directly all they could do was hold tight and hope for the best.

As the northernmost tower fell in a blaze of fire and crackling, shifting stone, Trevelyan cursed Thom Rainier for jinxing them.

The land around Skyhold already seemed to defy natural formation, looking hand-carved into the very Frostbacks themselves. But the artisanal construction of the ice and rock was nothing compared to the flaunting of gravity that an ancient magister could accomplish. As people ran in terror, Corypheus began his one-man assault on the Inquisition.

Once Trevelyan got to a good vantage point, he had to amend that thought.

\--One man, and several thousand darkspawn assault.

A storm was brewing overhead, the sky crackling with angry thunder under burning red clouds. The Chargers that hadn’t gone to the Arbor Wilds were in the courtyard, backing Iron Bull as they stemmed the flow of darkspawn through the hole in their walls. Some got through anyway, and he saw them rip one of their mages to shreds before she could get a spell in.

There wasn’t time at all.

He cursed himself next as he sprinted down to the Undercroft, nimbly darting around people fleeing or running to fight. His old set of armor was still receiving repairs from the Arbor Wilds.

Luckily for him, he’d commissioned a new set that was nearly completed in all but design. It was these he slipped on as quickly as he could, Dagna swiftly making adjustments to his bow and daggers as he did. Unlike everything up to this point, the jacket, gloves, and boots were a pure, stark white in color. The chestplate with the Inquisition’s insignia not burnished gold but gleaming pale silver. Red accents were traded for green.

Though he really didn’t have time to worry about his appearance right then. The moment everything was fastened he went running again, hearing the crack of magic and snarls. As soon as he darted out of the Undercroft he saw that the doors had been blown open. A darkspawn emissary was currently sputtering in explosive acid from the inside out—Morrigan’s work, probably, though she was no longer present. He was entranced long enough for a genlock to get the drop on him.

The beast almost managed to grab him before it was blown back across the hall with such force that its neck snapped on impact.

Dorian was there, chugging down a draft of lyruim.

“How I never managed to _kill you_ with how easily distracted you are by the pretty lights, I’ll never know.” He looked ruffled, the stark black robes he’d been wearing already torn, the remains of bedhead mixing with electricity to make his hair stand up. There was anger in his eyes, but fear too. “Interesting choice of outfit, by the way.”

“It’s made with tougher hide than the last one. I was still working on it.” Well, having Dagna work on it. Now wasn’t the time to be self-conscious. “You’ve seen what’s happening?”

“Of course I have. I can’t say I wasn’t expecting something like this, but I was hoping we’d have more time.” The ground rocked, and both of them had to fight to keep their balance for a moment. Dorian looked back to him, teeth clenched. “Don’t suppose you have a plan?”

Trevelyan turned, starting to pace as his mind worked. “Everyone is primarily focused on the darkspawn assault. And Corypheus has too high a ground for anyone fighting down there to get up to him.” He walked to the hole in the wall, looking down.

Ice blasts from Vivienne, Rainier shattering their frozen enemies, Sera firing arrows from atop Bull’s horns as he swept his axe to cleave them in two. He couldn’t see the others. But then this only afforded him a view of one side of the courtyard.

“—But we need as many of those darkspawn dead as possible. I don’t know if Corypheus can hop through them when his dragon’s dead, but I’d rather not have that be an option. And I can’t delegate that to the regular _soldiers_ because—” A surge of frustration coursed through him as he followed the line of logic. In the distance he saw a poisonous cloud and a flurry of bolts felling a pack of horlocks. “—because all the darkspawn specialists haven’t gotten back yet.”

Dorian let out a huff of frustration, joining him at his vantage point. “We fight the darkspawn while he opens another hole in the sky.”

His feet stilled.

Course of action decided.

Trevelyan turned again, walking quickly to the main doorway, gesturing for Dorian to follow. “I need as much of the horde off me as possible. You’re going to help with the others—your talents are far better suited to culling large crowds than mine.”

“You are right about that. Maker knows I’m much more suited to drawing attention.” His voice behind him was tense, lacking its usual confidence. Then suddenly he was outpacing Trevelyan, stopping in front of him. “And what will you be doing?”

“Going to stop Corypheus, of course.”

Dorian looked at him in horror. “So you’re going to—what? Fight him by yourself?”

Trevelyan grinned at him, heart racing, body feeling detached and weightless. “You asked. That is the plan.”

“It’s _suicide.”_

And Trevelyan said, pushing past him, “Yes, and think of the glorious songs they’ll write about me.”

“Wait.” Dorian’s fingers curled around his gloved wrist, holding him fast. “You can’t—Well, if you’re going to, the least you could do is take this.”

Dorian shoved the ring that he’d been given back at the Temple of Mythal into Trevelyan’s hand. He frowned in return. “What--don’t give that to me.”

“You’re the one going up against a magister alone. Why should I need to hide from darkspawn?”

Trevelyan attempted to push the ring back. “It only works when a mage is wearing it. It—feeds off of their Fade energies or something.”

“Which is why you’ll also be wearing _this_.” Dorian looped a thin, silver cord around his neck, attached to a shimmering, green pendant. The moment it touched his skin he felt little tingles of energy race over his body, like the kind of crawling that he always felt when he was alone and being watched. “There isn’t enough for you to be invisible indefinitely, mind you.”

He stared at the ring in his hand, mystified. Then he looked up again, fingers closing around the cool metal.

“Listen—” Dorian’s mask had cracked completely, and Trevelyan was chilled to see the fear and anguish there. “If—if one of us doesn’t make it out of this, I just want to have said—”

The world around them started to crack and pull away. They were out of time.

“The courtyard!” He had to roar to be heard over the sound of Corypheus pulling a chunk of Skyhold away as though it was a brioche centerpiece at an Orlesian tea party. “Don’t let any of the darkspawn get into the hold!”

Dorian said something that sounded like a curse in Tevene, and the two broke.

Through the battle he raced, shouting orders when he could. Though it was hard to get them heard in the chaos around them. Darkspawn caught on fire as they approached him, the disgusting smell of their cooking flesh almost making him regret having Dorian’s protection. As he sprinted for the remaining tower, closest to where Corypheus had made his platform, he nearly tripped and slid over gutted soldiers and healers and refugees. He killed a genlock in passing as it was eating a man alive.

They were killing his people.

_His. People._

When he arrived at that tower, his hands were shaking. Looking for something to tear at, to express the churning inside him. It wasn’t rage but it felt like it, that same desire to stomp out anything and everything in his path.

This was his fight. No one else could do this.

Trevelyan hopped on to the floating land.

He had done exactly what Corypheus had wanted to do himself, every step of the way. The Anchor he had sought to use to tear apart reality had latched into _Trevelyan_ ’s arm. When Celene was assassinated, it was _Trevelyan’s_ player who won the Game. The Grey Warden army that he had sought to enslave, _Trevelyan_ had stolen for himself. It was _Trevelyan_ who had a mage under his command drink from the Well of Sorrows to use its knowledge as he saw fit. The two of them, they shared too much. But it was more than that.

Corypheus wanted to be a god, but it was Trevelyan who had people kissing the ground he walked on and invoking his name in battle.

Jealous little shit.

“I’m the one you want!” he shouted, knowing it to be true. He saw dark, twisted eyes turn on him, burning with hatred, the hatred of being one instead of many, of losing everything. “Leave these people alone!”

“I have no desire for _needless_ slaughter,” Corypheus intoned. The air around them shimmered with his magic, and though it was quite the impressive display Trevelyan found himself wondering how much mana he was wasting doing it. “Those who prove willing to bow to their new master will be spared.”

“The ones who survive, you mean.”

“As if I have need for an army of your followers.” Corypheus was just as tall in person as he remembered, a shambling abomination of twisted flesh and skeletal bone. Power arced from his very fingertips, barely constrained magic that consumed him as much as it did bolster him. “You have foiled what of my plans you could, but this only shows that you lack the power to hold what you have created. All you have built, I will take from you.” His eyes were cold and empty of light, even the red shine of his magic swallowed by their depths. “We shall prove here, once and for all, which of us is worthy of godhood.”

There was no one but the two of them.

No friends.

No allies.

No enemies.

Trevelyan grinned wide.

“ _I DON’T **BELIEVE** IN GODS_.”

The battle erupted with a snarl and a crackle of power, a streak of red light firing his way as he jumped for some rubble to hide himself with. In use, Corypheus’ magic felt polluted and wrong, something he could feel chafing against existence instead of merely dancing around it. Shards of glinting red lyrium danced in the air, pointed daggers that quickly turned to point right at him.

Trevelyan slipped on the ring, and delighted in hearing Corypheus’ cry of rage as his target vanished.

“So, the great Inquisitor is a coward, is he?!” The shards flew every which way, and while they managed to easily puncture his elation he was able to avoid having any do more than just surface harm to his clothing. In retaliation, he pulled his bow and drew back, feeling the familiar tug on his muscles as he aimed and fired. Which some difficulty, unable to see the tip of his arrow.

It became visible as it hit against Corypheus’ pauldron, a spurt of dark blood lancing out from the wound and soaking what had probably once been feathers. Trevelyan suppressed the urge to whoop in triumph as more shards of red shot his way.

As he ran he could feel the buzzing energy of the amulet waning, and hastily pulled the ring from his finger.

At that time he had been out of Corypheus’ sight, safely behind what had once been part of their wall. Unfortunately he was not out of sight from the air, and before he had time to really react, a blast of fire washed over him and set one of his legs on fire.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” He danced, trying to put out the flame and feeling the heat broiling his skin through the fabric. A lance of energy from where Corypheus was clutching at his wounded shoulder shot right by his side, only narrowly reducing his arm to cinders, and though this battle had only briefly started he was already regretting his plan of attack.

That was the problem with dogfights. They were often decided in less than a minute.

Especially when one of the dogs was a dragon speeding right for him.

Right as his heart was leaping nimbly into his throat, feeling at the sight that today might be both the best and worst of his existence, a high dragon with shimmering dark purple scales and flashing yellow eyes slammed into the false archdemon and knocked it off course.

Corypheus tried to rend him apart as the two clashed. Trevelyan fired one of his arrows laden with explosive charge, and while Corypheus was more than capable of deflecting the blast, there wasn’t much he could do about the smoke.

“I should have guessed—“ Corypheus roared as he searched in vain, destroying bits of architecture as he stumbled about. “—that the only way you could have survived this far is through trickery.” It seemed difficult for him to move with any speed. His gait was impressive and confident when walking, but he wobbled when he tried to run.

Was that little mage skirt a part of his person too? Trevelyan sliced, felt his dagger cut through tendon. “Yes! I cheat! I cheat, and I cheat, and--” A clawed hand swiped back toward him, practically slapping him in the face. He dropped the dagger in shock. More fire rained down, giving enough distraction to hastily slide the ring back on, embarrassed and angry again.

_Jealous self-righteous little—_

The smell of fire and brimstone clogged his nostrils. Molten rocks fell upon them, two dragons screaming in pain and anger, though which was which he didn’t dare distract himself to look. Corypheus did—he watched his beast in combat as he ducked and dodged, and Trevelyan taught him why that was unwise with a slice into his side with one of his thinner blades, right through one of the fleshy straps connecting his body to his armor.

It was a lot of fun to hear him scream in pain.

The air shook again as he raced back to safety once more. Two dragons fell. One of them broken and bleeding but alive. The other, a great husk of meat.

Trevelyan’s grin hurt his face, watching Corypheus’ magic sputter as he put up his barrier. He notched back another explosive charge and aimed not at him, but the tottering, damaged tower above that was freshly weakened from the impact of two enormous creatures hitting near it.

The crack of the stone breaking was almost as loud as the sound it made upon hitting the ground.

“How much of yourself did you pour into your pet?” he sneered, stalking around the rubble as it shifted, the occupant underneath evidently still alive. “How much did you sacrifice, banking on the idea that it would make you immortal?”

…How much was it, actually?

Corypheus had made the dragon into a false archdemon with red lyrium and his own magic. Dorian had confirmed that. It was all much more technical than Trevelyan could parse, but the gist of it was that the magic doubled back on him, giving his spirit an anchor point to move through to another body if the one he was inhabiting should die. Power exchanged for life.

If that magic was in the dragon, where did it go now that its host was dead? Did it all just disappear?

Or did it go back to its master?

Corypheus rose from the rubble. One of his eyes was now glowing a dull purple, sclera black as ink. Light twitched from his hands, dripping like liquid off of his splintered fingers.

Teeth bared, Trevelyan hurried to bring his bow up to bear again.

A blast of physical force, direct and focused like a precision knife, cut through the air and whistled by his ear.

Shards of wood flew as his bow shattered.

He looked down at the pieces of it in his hand, staring in numb shock.

Resting in his palm he still held the segment that had been carved with his name, the largest solid piece that remained.

All he saw after that was red.

Whether that was the strength of his rage or because Corypheus’ magic was imbued with the angry glow of its infected lyrium was something he couldn’t determine. He forwent all subtlety, roaring as he raced forward, wanting to pull him apart with his bare hands.

Another blast of magical force met him then, throwing him through the air and entirely off his feet. He hit the ground and skidded, almost going right off the platform entirely save for some quick scrabbling against the jagged rock.

Dorian was down below. So was everyone else, but he could see the man’s flash, a diamond amongst a writhing horde. The spike of lightning as he tore through waves of darkspawn, a gaggle of Inquisition soldiers behind him carrying off one of their wounded. For a moment, he wished he could watch. Just lay down and appreciate the sight of a better man turning the tide of battle as the rest of his companions joined in, and let them climb up to share in his triumph so he wouldn’t have to kill himself to preserve everything that made his life worth living.

His arm hung off the edge, and for a moment he imagined he could reach down and pluck him up.

“The notion that you could have ever bested me is truly laughable.”

The voice rumbled behind him, and he slowly moved to sit up.

Corypheus was towering over him. He was bleeding somewhat urgently from various points in his body, and yet it still did nothing to affect his bearing, the way he held himself as though he was as tall as the dragon he commanded.

“You are naught but a soporati, nipping at the heels of your betters,” he growled, bony thin fingers curling as he spoke. A hum seemed to hang on his words, singing in their aftermath. “You will become nothing more than a footnote on the pages of my history, a mistake upon which I will stake my triumph. You think you know magic? You are a child playing at what you do not understand.”

Trevelyan was having difficulty getting his legs to cooperate. He fumbled with his belt, for the remaining knives within, and struggled because they weren’t where he thought they should be. Stiffly, he looked around.

Ah. It had fallen when he hit the ground.

“You lash out because you are empty. You cannot conceive of a world that has structure, that makes sense, because creatures like you thrive in the chaos.”

He started to crawl—just a little bit. Just the shortest distance, enough to bring it within his grasp and also, as an unpleasant side effect, get Corypheus’ attention. Clawed fingers knocked the wind out of him as he was struck, rolling along the edge and hitting a piece of rubble hard. Something in his arm might be cracked. It was always hard to tell when adrenaline had made him numb.

“Why continue to resist when you see what I can accomplish with less than half your resources?” The voice was growing louder, closer, and closing his eyes did nothing for the volume and naked contempt that laced it. “Why fight for a Maker you profess not to believe in?”

Trevelyan braced his palm on the ground.

Corypheus leaned in, snarling, rage finally completely overtaking the deadened rasp of his voice. “ _Why_ are you **_smiling?_** ”

“You—you’re still talking.” He laughed as he pushed himself up once more, infectious giggling that threatened to split him open, he was starting to hurt so badly. “You haven’t learned _anything._ ”

With his foe in point blank range, he threw his knife.

Then he was everywhere.

It was Dagna’s enchantments on his armor mixed with the enchantments on his weapons, mixed with a heavy helping of luck and some tampering by Dorian once he was allowed to contribute his aid, all wrapped up in language he didn’t quite understand but didn’t need to. His body felt light, and fast, and as he became a shadow he cut in hundreds of places, picking at wounds that were already established and making new ones. He’d seen Cole do it, once, just all on his own. And he’d wanted so very much to try it himself.

When he became solid again, he was there to give a final strike.

Blood was quickly staining the snow-white of his jacket, covered in dark, mottled red and burgundy splotches. It was starting to feel like him, like something he should be, and the only reason Trevelyan didn’t smile wider was because he didn’t want to get any of that blood in his mouth.

He remembered Haven.

He remembered staring at something his eyes didn’t understand and realizing that the world was so much bigger and darker than he’d known it to be.

He remembered the clumsy locking of his joints as the terrible and powerful creature approached him, stuttering gasps for answers.

He remembered being hoisted into the air, feeling rank breath on his face as he struggled against nothing, heard speech mingling with the sharp music and whispering of red lyrium and Blight.

Then the real world and the ground came to meet him again as he was tossed aside like refuse.

What he felt now, was what he felt then.

And what he felt was pure ecstasy.

He plunged his knife home, and felt it jerk free from his hands as its target pulled away. Blood slicked his gloves with a wet squelch, and he watched his prey, hunched over until he was almost Trevelyan’s own height, struggling to stand with one of his lungs in two. Heart thudding, he followed, the maelstrom of exhilaration lending a bounce to his gait.

Corypheus held up the orb in his hands, red magic lancing through it as he invoked the aid of gods that either had never existed or had abandoned him.

Trevelyan felt the tug in his palm, like string pulling through flesh, and he flexed the Anchor.

The orb came hurtling to its rightful holder, landing neatly in his palm. In the process it smashed through Corypheus’ jaw, shattering it.

“You wanted into the Fade,” Trevelyan snarled, the joy of bloodlust still racing through him, body running on pure adrenaline. He held out the orb. Corypheus looked at him, eyes lackluster from shock, mouth slack.

There was a sharp, delicious cracking sound, and then he tore open one last hole in reality. Right in the magister’s sternum.

The resulting scream pierced the air. The vessel he was using as his body crackled and popped and stretched. And then, Trevelyan closed the rift. And then there was hardly anything left of Corypheus to pull apart.

There was nowhere for the excess, flooding energy inside him to go, so he laughed there over the wet, red remains of his enemy until his sides ached and his lungs hurt. He laughed, hitching at first and then growing in volume and pitch as the world crumbled around him, no longer being supported by the flood of power Corypheus had used to keep the little island up. Laughing with his sharp teeth and covered in blood, laughing as he heard footsteps approaching him, and then he had to look up because at some point his legs had given out and he was lying on freezing cold ground.

It was hard to tell who was looking at him, vision growing blurry from exhaustion and forcing him to squint. Solas was there, eyes filled with an unbearable, crushing weight. Trevelyan wanted to yell at him, they had won, there was no need to be sad, and then he followed the line of his gaze and saw a pile of oddly carved rubble.

The orb.

He’d promised.

In all the excitement…

“ _What were you like? Before the Anchor?”_

_“Has it affected you? Changed you in any way? Your mind, your morals, your…spirit?”_

_“You have not been what I expected, Inquisitor.”_

_“Every great war has its heroes. I’m just curious what kind you’ll be.”_

Solas walked away.

His breath hitched, lungs raspy and overtaxed. He pushed himself up, struggling to find his balance. The world was wrong again. Corypheus was dead and _he_ hadn’t learned anything. What was he, but the next victor to stand on the pile of bodies? He didn’t even know what to do with power when he had it. The things he desired were simple and unambitious.

“ _If you do nothing, someone else will answer in your stead_.”

He pulled up the pieces of the orb, like a puzzle, slowly fitting them together. They were not exact—there were gaps, powdered remains of its finely crafted decoration. His forehead was warm and wet with liquid trailing down his temple as he grew more frustrated, trying to gather the little pieces and add them to the whole as the whole fell apart again.

It wouldn’t, he’d broken it, it could never be fixed—

“You’re _alive_.”

The orb tumbled from his hands again as he looked up.

Dorian was there. He approached with slow, cautious steps, as though he were an illusion that could break at any moment, with the slightest of indelicate care. Bruised, bloodied, torn, glorious, eyes full of awe and wonder.

And then that was all the world was. All it needed to be.

Trevelyan’s chest grew tight. He tried to stand, to stride towards him with purpose, that purpose being to demonstrate that he was not some fantasy but a real flesh and blood being with all his faults and inconsistencies, but his blighted legs had evidently decided that they really were done doing their job and all he remembered after that point that night was both falling and Dorian sprinting to catch him.

 

The sounds of the yet-ongoing revelry coming from the great hall below just barely came through to the Inquisitor’s quarters. The dull murmur of a chattering crowd, music, singing and chanting. Noises that hadn’t been audible over the rustle of clothing and gasping breath, but now broke through the stillness with a faint kind of remonstration, a reminder that the world they’d briefly left behind was never truly gone.

Evidently things had picked up since Trevelyan and Dorian had excused themselves from the party; something that Trevelyan, himself, was grateful for. He’d gotten tired of talking about his triumph, everyone asking him what had happened, forcing him to repeat the same events over and over. There were only so many ways one could embellish the story before ratcheting them up stopped being funny, started instead making him think about the unpleasantries associated with it. Now he was adrift in bliss, nearly dozing on Dorian’s chest, pleasantly sore and boneless.

Admittedly, some of that soreness had to do with still being in recovery from nearly dying not so long ago. Not that that had stopped them.

“You’ll make me sick,” Dorian eventually murmured, gently sifting his fingers through Trevelyan’s hair and scratching lightly at his scalp. “Are you _actually_ listening to my heartbeat?”

“Like a little bird desperately trying to break free from its cage,” he replied, eyes closing in pleasure.

“My heart smashing out of my ribs? Garish thought.”

“Mmmm. I’ll catch it for you, don’t worry. The little bird’s not going anywhere.” He was never very good at making sense once he’d become intimate with someone, but rather than the reactions he was accustomed to he felt a low chuckle vibrate through Dorian’s chest. It made his own feel tight and warm.

More silence followed, and from below he could hear them singing a new song. The words were too muffled to make out, but it sounded bright, at least. Maybe a rendition of their battle against Corypheus. He wondered if everyone was represented in it, or if he’d had to have a chat with Maryden later.

“Have you given much thought to the future?” Dorian asked suddenly. Trevelyan, aching body begging him to just drift off to sleep, opened his eyes.

“The future?”

“Well it…just occurred to me that we have one now.”

The future. Terrifying prospect. One with so many fires to put out. Questions to answer. Questions he should have been asking before he’d killed Corypheus. He didn’t like thinking of the future.

Instead he asked, carefully, “What were you planning to do before?”

“Before?” Dorian laughed in that breathless, nervous way he sometimes did. Something warning stirred in Trevelyan’s chest. “Well…Before, I would have probably gone back to Tevinter. I had plans to fix the whole place, you see. Bring my homeland back to its glory days under, well…Corypheus’ leadership. Or—mine, hopefully, backed by his authority.”

“Well, that’s not happening now.”

“No, it’s not. Like I would have any standing to do any of that now.” His head fell back against the pillow, and he stared up at the ceiling. “No, I suppose going back to Tevinter is simply out of the question. They’ll have to…make do without my scandalous presence.”

Trevelyan heard the note of wistfulness in his voice, heard the way he tried to stuff his feelings under sarcasm.

His heart stopped.

Dorian continued talking, unaware of the change in the air. “I suppose that means you’re stuck with me, Inquisitor.” Giving his hair another fond ruffle. “Lucky you.”

"Lucky me,” he said numbly, mind racing. After a moment he realized how that sounded, saw Dorian staring at him, and pulled a mask on. Climbing up to kiss him properly and add a slightly more sultry note to his voice. “Lucky me, indeed.”

He could feel Dorian smiling under his lips, and his heart started up again. Only, its rhythm was painful and sharp, and he had to grip the sheets under them to keep himself from trembling, keep from getting worked up over nothing, over something he could have imagined—

“And who knows? Maybe someday this Inquisition will be big enough to beat Tevinter into submission before everyone’s slaughtered by Qunari or—all the Soporati and slaves slain in a blood magic ritual for the Magisterium, or something.”

Trevelyan buried his face in Dorian’s neck and mumbled, “yes”.

“You’ll let me come along, won’t you? Let me fix some of the damage I’ve done while I watch you beat my countrymen into submission.”

He wanted to tear himself apart. It was all wrong. It was wrong and unfair and it hurt and he didn’t want to think about it but it wouldn’t stop now.

He’d conquered his dragon but Dorian hadn’t gotten that chance yet.

Trevelyan sat up, unable to mask the jitter in his voice. “Yes. Anything you want. Because—” He licked his lips, cupping Dorian’s cheek even as he looked more confused. “Because you’re mine. And that means giving you anything you want.”

“That…sounds a little backward, Inquisitor.” He chuckled, the faintest bit of nerves showing in his voice before he covered it up. “What’s all this coming from? Feeling a little unhinged from all the excitement? --Not that I object to being given everything I want, mind.”

“I did almost die not too long ago,” Trevelyan said, voice quiet.

“That didn’t seem to bother you all the other times it’s happened,” Dorian returned smoothly, running his fingers through his hair again. “Though I can see why this particular time might have been more strenuous.”

“Fate of the world and all.”

“Quite.” The numb terror must have still shown on his face. Despite not knowing the cause, Dorian took pity on him and pulled him back in, one hand splayed over his scalp and the other comfortingly on his back. “Despite being an absolute scoundrel, I’ll try not to hold your outlandish promises against you.”

Trevelyan had never felt his own selfishness so acutely, so painfully, as he did right then. He put his arms around Dorian as best he could and squeezed, breathing in the aroma of lilac soap and the natural scent that lingered underneath, the one he wanted all of his pillows to smell like.

And as much as he tried not to, he thought about endings.


	17. Too Soon To Tell

For two months after Corypheus’ defeat, very little changed.

They tried to appease nobles, went on missions to right wrongs or just amass resources, closed lingering rifts, and in general did as an Inquisition does. For a time they were all together, and during that time they no longer had the oppressive weight of impending doom on their shoulders—even if death still threatened them every now and then.

Of course, it didn’t last.

Leliana was appointed Divine, to the shock of very few but the outrage of many, once she made her policies known. Vivienne was the first to leave, regrouping with associates in Orlais to try and “minimize the damage” with the “disastrous choice for the Sunburst Throne”. Trevelyan had shown little affection outwardly as he saw her off, but Dorian had seen the quiet exchange of parting gifts between them when there were less eyes on Madame de Fer’s departure. It was the beginning of the end.

Thom Rainier left next, which was to be expected. How he had stayed on this long, Dorian wasn’t entirely sure. He would seek out the Wardens in Weisshaupt, he had said, now that his deception was no longer strictly necessary. Trevelyan had glowered during the entire discussion, and then seemed to crumble as he watched the man leave Skyhold’s still shattered front gate.

Joesphine was responsible for Iron Bull’s departure, suggesting that their coffers could stand to have one less drain on them now that their primary reason for hiring the Chargers was resolved. Trevelyan had stared at her for a full minute before agreeing in a quiet, clipped voice, and then he proceeded not to speak to Josephine for a full week.

When Varric declared his plans to leave for Kirkwall, Trevelyan almost didn’t let him. He laughed and acted as though he was okay with it as he physically blocked him from going through the door. How Varric talked him into moving, Dorian wasn’t entirely sure. He’d gone to fetch their Seeker to help resolve the situation, and by the time the both of them returned Trevelyan was standing in the corner alone, placidly reading a dusty old journal.

Repairs on Skyhold had been underway since the very next morning after Corypheus’ attack. When the tower that had been torn away to float in the sky was about halfway reconstructed, Cole had announced his intent to leave as well. Following the bard Maryden, as it happens. Hurts to heal, or however it was he tended to word things. Trevelyan had seemed almost personally offended, as though to say that the Inquisition wasn’t doing enough to keep the spirit’s attention. But in the end, he’d understood, and sent the boy off with his blessing.

Sera wasn’t really much of a surprise. Dorian was frankly surprised that she stuck around as long as she did, Skyhold being inundated with a solid stream of nobles every day and less and less opportunities to mess with them. “I have to be where I fit, yeah? Now that the world’s all fixed” she’d said, Trevelyan glowering sullenly as he took the news. She’d consoled him with the reassurance that, as evidenced by all their excursions there in the past, Val Royeaux wasn’t very far away at all. He’d protested that she’d leave there eventually, and she replied, “Not without letting you know, you tit.”

Cassandra, of all people, had remained. Not in the same capacity as she once was—as Leliana’s appointment drew nearer she had to prepare to return to her role as Right Hand, of course. And when she wasn’t occupied with her duties there, she was focused on the other enormous goal she had made for herself, planning to reform the Seekers into an organization worthy of veneration. But the Inquisition was done on her initiative, and she was hardly going to leave it all in Trevelyan’s hands. He complained loudly and at length about that fact, but it was obvious to even her that he was grateful for it.

And Solas, of course, was simply gone.

Not even Leliana knew where.

They did not leave all at once. It wasn’t like that. But most of them did leave. And Trevelyan grew quieter and more brooding as they did, leaving for long meetings with his spymaster or outside of the walls hunting. There were plenty of times when he was his usual cheerful, chattering self, around Dorian at least. But they were growing more scarce as the pressures of _after_ started to catch up to him. And some other dreadfully serious matter that he was refusing to discuss.

Dorian, for his part, had taken to restlessly wandering Skyhold at night.

People gave him his space. The angry glares were gone, as well as the suspicion, though he was not regarded with quite as much zeal as the others. He tried not to mind it, even as he avoided them like the plague. He wouldn’t, really, if it wasn’t so late at night and he wasn’t so wound up when he should be sleeping. Whatever he was looking for, it didn’t involve talking or other people. It just filled up the space in his head when he wasn’t able to distract it with work.

Tonight he’d grown tired of the tavern, bored of the gardens, and unable to pick a book he wanted at the library. He was prowling back down the stairs again, wondering if he should give his bed another try, and stumbled upon Trevelyan glaring moodily at the mural that the absent member of his inner circle had painted in the rotunda.

Like he’d been doing more often the past few weeks, he hesitated before approaching him. Trevelyan had been distant. Not cold, or unwelcoming. Just…distracted. It was understandable—there was so much to distract him, after all. But as Dorian was discovering, it was hard to bridge that distance when the intensity of his focus was elsewhere.

At times like this Dorian dearly wished that looking at their Inquisitor didn’t make him feel hollow and yet complete at the same time. It was very difficult to pretend to be unaffected by the silence when he wasn’t, hard to put that teasing rise in his voice that usually got him to smile even if he was clearly deep in thought about something unpleasant. Which had been happening a lot lately. “I bet you’ve been staring at that for hours already.”

Trevelyan didn’t look his way, but there was a subtle shift in his posture to show that he heard. He was sitting on Solas’ old desk like a teenager, all manner of things, including one of those shards that had once sang with bizarre magic, pushed to the edge to make room for him.

When a response didn’t come, Dorian tried again. “Think he left you a coded message in the art or something? There was a cult to Urthemiel in ancient Tevinter that used to do that. A bit of a nudge in wall frescoes for those in their club. Though I doubt your apostate friend would be so cloak-and-dagger.”

When Trevelyan didn’t hungrily gobble up that little tidbit about Tevinter culture like he did every other scrap of information Dorian offered, he knew something was wrong. Or, more obviously wrong than it had been.

He said only, “We need to talk.”

Perhaps he was secretly a mage, the way those words sent an icy chill through Dorian’s stomach. He ignored the feeling, dismissed thoughts of _I should have sneaked past him_ _this is **that** conversation, _forced an airy, “Oh?”

Trevelyan carelessly pushed more junk on the desk to the side, letting a few papers and notebooks topple to the floor, and then patted the spot next to him as though it was a sofa cushion. When he turned an expectant glance his way, he seemed to catch something slipping through Dorian’s well-practiced mask and added, “I don’t mean to make you nervous.”

He laughed, a sound that had too much of a tremor in it for the effect he wanted, and stayed where he was by the stairs. “The dread Inquisitor, make _me_ nervous? Perish the thought.”

“Then come over here.”

It was hard not to look a little put out at being seen through, but after a moment Dorian did as he was asked. Just as he settled himself on the hard wood, Trevelyan slipped off his glove with his teeth, reaching to hold Dorian’s hand in his. It was his right hand—the same scarring all over his knuckles as his left. He started rubbing Dorian’s palm, as though he wanted to commit the lines on it to memory.

“I said to myself, Dorian probably has callouses from twirling that staff of his around,” he murmured to himself, though loud enough to hear. “I like being correct.”

The attention sent little tingles shivering through his body, but Dorian remained as impassive as he was able. No delaying the inevitable. “What is it you wish to discuss?”

“Right. …Well, it’s not wish so much as need.” Trevelyan let go, giving him a forlorn look that did nothing to ease the tension that was growing in his stomach. His voice was soft, and slow, words carefully chosen. “Now that all this is over…”

Dorian frowned, swallowing and bracing himself for the continuation of that sentence. _Now that this is over I see no further use for you. Fun’s over, get out._

“If you…if you no longer wish to stay with the Inquisition—”

He refused to wait through the ‘it’s not you, it’s me’. “Are you throwing me out? Is that where this is going?”

Trevelyan’s eyes hardened considerably. “No. That’s not where it was going.”

His breath caught. “Oh.”

The gentleness vanished from the other man’s voice, though his tone was not harsh. Just matter-of-fact. “I realize that you first came to Skyhold in chains. All I wanted to say is that Corypheus is dead, you did your part, you no longer need to feel trapped here. If…” And it was there he started to stumble. “If indeed you feel…trapped here.”

“I don’t feel trapped.” Trevelyan did not look like he believed him. Dorian sighed. “I’m—I’m where I’m wanted. I’m safe, with someone I lo—care about very much.”

“But if you feel like you have nowhere else to go—”

“I’m here because I want to be.” Dorian kissed him gently, resting a hand on the side of his face. Trevelyan leaned into his touch, but did not kiss back. “—The fact that I have nowhere else to go is purely incidental.”

“You miss Tevinter.” The words were sharp, and precise.

“I—” And he couldn’t deny it. Because it was true. Even though he shouldn’t—even though everything wrong with his life, he could trace back to his homeland. Thinking back on all he’d seen, it was hard not to feel like Tevinter’s very foundations were rooted in malice and cruelty. And yet… “…Figured that out, did you?”

Trevelyan coughed into his fist, looking back to the mural. “It’s alright. …It is your home.” When he glanced back, the softness had returned. “You want to make it better. That’s what all this has been about, isn’t it? You can’t exactly do that from a fortress in the Frostbacks.”

“Is that why you’ve been so despondent?” Dorian forced a chuckle, pressing a hand to Trevelyan’s back and rubbing a little along his shoulders. “Thinking I’m going to run off like everyone else? …Even if that is what I want, it’s not like it’s something I can just _do_.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for starters, I would have no credibility up there. No clout. They would run me out of the magisterium the moment I stepped into it.”

“Because of a few scandals?”

“A few scandals?” A look of incredulity replaced the false cheer on his face. “Have you not been paying attention to the past year? Venatori? Evil, mustache twirling Dorian Pavus? Ringing any bells? I know that we’re famous for corruption, but even that sort of thing draws a line.”

“That’s not a matter of public knowledge.”

He stared.

Trevelyan looked away, shrugging. The aversion to looking Dorian in the eye the only expression of emotion he showed. “As far as anyone knows now, you’re just the Pavus’ wayward son who spent the last few years wasting his time on drink and parties and then joined the Inquisition when they needed it most. Anything else is just…careless rumor.”

If Trevelyan had looked, he would see the furrowing of Dorian’s brow. “Are you saying that the high society of Tevinter are particularly oblivious to what’s going on with their Southern neighbors, or did…did you do something?”

“You’ve met Leliana. You know how well she operates. With the groundwork your father laid out already it wasn’t that difficult to wipe your slate clean.”

“Wipe it clean?”

He should feel relieved. No—he should feel ecstatic. The oppressive weight of his sins, the mistakes and false starts and atrocities he had been party to were sometimes almost too much to bear when lying awake at night. Though removing record of them would never undo what he’d done, it would keep it from being a millstone around his neck in his future efforts to atone. Which was clearly the intention. He should be grateful.

All that came through was anger. “You can’t just—you can’t just _snap your fingers_ and erase all of the things I’ve done.”

Trevelyan looked back, the infuriating, placid stillness remaining. “I believe I already have.”

“You weren’t even going to consult me on this?”

“What was there to consult?” All he seemed to be was confused, turning a little so that they were better facing each other. “Why are you being so…strange about this?”

“Do you have any idea what it’s like,” Dorian seethed, “To lose everything because of your mistakes and then have someone just _hand it back_ to you?”

“No.”

On any other day the absolute, idiotic _bluntness_ of the reply would have him in stitches. Not today. “This is some sort of joke to you, isn’t it? Just another mission you can send agents on and have everything taken care of for you and your _favorites_.”

Finally, Trevelyan began to look alarmed. “ _No_.”

“Isn’t it?”

“This isn’t an issue of _favoritism._ It’s—” He growled, looking at his hands and sliding his gloves back on, hopping down from the desk. “Okay, fine, it’s favoritism, but it’s not because of _us_ , it’s because of _you_. This is—” He swallowed, brushing a hand through his hair, as he tended to do. “This is me doing a good deed.”

“A good deed? This does not _constitute_ a good deed.” Dorian stood as well, hands on his hips. Their voices were starting to echo off the walls of the rotunda, but he didn’t care. “The lies don’t _help_ , you can’t just ignore or—or _unperson_ the people I’ve hurt.”

“I barely _needed_ to,” he shot back. “Your _father_ did most of that.”

“So now you’re continuing my _father’s_ work.”

“ _No_ , that’s not—” It occurred to Dorian, watching Trevelyan fumble for words, that perhaps he really just didn’t have the moral understanding to see. “You can’t just phrase it like I’m—like it’s—”

“You mean flagrantly abusing your authority like it’s nothing? Like principles don’t matter? The exact sort of thing you did for Tho—"

“ _Dorian just SHUT UP.”_

Silence fell over them like a toxic cloud. Trevelyan was breathing heavily, viciousness in his expression, and Dorian put a hand over his eyes, rubbing into them hard.

His tongue felt thick and clumsy when he tried to speak. To make him understand. “Now I’ll—now I’ll always be _indebted_ to you—”

“No, that’s not why I did it—”

“—And I’ll always know that it was _you_ who fixed this, that I didn’t earn this myself.”

The words were wounding, judging from the way the air seemed to leave Trevelyan, the way he suddenly faltered.

“But if I can help you, why shouldn’t I?” It felt like a gut punch to see that tears had started to slip from his reddening eyes, and the anger became something else. “If I can fix something, why is _that_ bad? I see something wrong and I correct it. You are a good man, and the things that happened weren’t your fault. Now you have a real chance to make up for it. Now you have the opportunity you deserve. If even _I_ can see that, if all I have to do is give the word, then why _shouldn’t_ —”

“ _Because sometimes you’re wrong._ ” Dorian cupped his face, and Trevelyan almost seemed to collapse back against the wall, quickly moving to hold Dorian’s hands with his own. He started crying harder. “Sometimes it’s not _your_ decision to make. _Vishante kaffas_ , will you stop—” He moved to kiss the tears on his left cheek. “Will you just stop—” Now his right. “Stop _crying_ —”

And then he was kissing him senseless against the wall, and then being pulled into a crushing embrace. There were words he needed to say, an argument he needed to make, but now all thoughts and dialogue fled as he sank into this moment, this world where it was just the two of them together and nothing else.

Somehow, later, they wound up on the floor, staring up towards the high rafters where Leliana’s birds perched.

The floor was cold.

Neither of them moved for quite some time, though Dorian finally cleared his throat with a small cough, deciding he didn’t quite like the notion of lying there on the hard ground forever.

“Well…” he said into the stillness, “As we can see, one of the scant few things I am bad at is being grateful for magnanimous gestures done on my behalf.”

Trevelyan turned and started giggling into his shoulder. The indignity of the sound got Dorian giggling too, and then for almost two minutes they could say nothing, just letting the tension drain out of them.

“I’m sorry about the crying,” Trevelyan added, once he had his breathing under control. Underneath the joking note there was something tentative and cringing. “That almost never happens.”

“Oh, I’m quite sure.” Dorian brushed a thumb over his cheek, feeling the remains of tear tracks there. “You got it all over my robes, too. I’ll have to have them cleaned.”

“I am sure it is not the worst thing you have had to clean out of your robes.”

That made him laugh again, hard enough that he felt it in his stomach. Then he was thinking about Tevinter, and his father, and the Venatori, and he could feel that in his stomach too.

“I do have to go back,” he said finally.

“I know.” For a moment, it seemed that was all Trevelyan had to say on the matter. Then he added, “I knew already. …I meant to talk to you about this ages ago and I kept putting it off.”

“Small wonder why.” Everything hurt. Including his back, which was what prompted him to finally sit up, groaning a little as he did. “My apologies for…the lecture. I’m hardly the one to judge what one should do with power.”

“But you are.” Trevelyan sat up with him, his eyes stern and glinting in the light. “That’s why it needs to be you, Dorian. You know your enemy. You know why they do what they do. And you know why they’re wrong. …And you care enough to get concerned over the…means you use against them. They wouldn’t be trading one tyrant for another, with you in charge.”

“Oh stop. You’re making it sound like I’m going to be Archon.” After getting to his feet Dorian held out a hand for Trevelyan. “See yourself as a tyrant, then?”

"I think, bereft of positive influences, I would have been worse than Corypheus.” The stone grimness that followed the proclamation only lasted a moment, Trevelyan suddenly grinning and scratching the back of his neck. “–Ah, but then that’s a hypothetical, and I’ve always grown easily tired of thinking in the abstract. I could have also just been a scoundrel wasting my life in some…brutal mercenary band. I’ve never been that ambitious.”

“Perhaps we might have still met.” The look of him, those bright eyes and that crooked, sheepish smile, and Dorian’s chest abruptly felt tight. Inwardly, for the sake of his personal dignity he blamed the sudden rush of feeling on lingering emotional damage from having his mind altered. “Perhaps we’d still be in this situation now, pulled apart by our obligations, never to--Maker, how can you be so calm now?”

“I’ve had my painful emotion for the day. I’m all tapped out.” Before he could move away he was ensnared in Trevelyan’s arms, one hand firmly on the middle of his back and the other arm around his waist. “I’d be quite happy to comfort you, however.”

“It’s just _sinking in_ that I’ll have to go back. That I might never see you aga—"

“Don’t make me think about it. Not any more than I have to. Please.”

The softness of his voice stilled Dorian’s tongue

“I’m almost…glad to be afraid,” Trevelyan continued, fingers idly tapping an unsteady rhythm on Dorian’s hip bone. “Because that's how I know something is worthwhile. …I’ve never had anything worthwhile before all this. But I—I’d rather not think about you leaving. Not while you’re still here, and I could be…thinking just of you instead.”

It occurred to him that he had his own arms, and he hastily moved them to hold Trevelyan back. The gesture felt unnatural to him, spending a lifetime with lovers that were only so in darkness and under sheets. And yet, once the warmth of his body was there, Dorian couldn’t make himself let go even if he wanted to.

“You are surprisingly sentimental,” he finally murmured, “For someone who has killed as many people as you have, as gleefully as you have.”

Trevelyan’s voice was almost a whisper, only audible because his mouth was right by Dorian’s ear. “You bring it out in me.”

 

Dorian left for Tevinter two weeks following.

Trevelyan was the very picture of control as he went to send him off, grinning with his sharp teeth and telling him about ‘all the fun he was going to miss with the Avvar in the Frostback basin’. That is, until they got to the pier and it was time to separate, and then he crushed him into his arms again, sniffling.

It was the kind of display that would have made him nervous back in Tevinter, the kind of thing that made him feel cherished and adored, the sort of incentive to stay that he had to fight back as he finally returned the embrace.

“I’ll write to you,” he said, meaning it and also knowing he wouldn’t write nearly enough.

“I’ll write back,” Trevelyan murmured, still unwilling to let go.

“I’m sure you won’t miss me so much as to justify all this fuss,” Dorian returned after about a minute, knowing that he needed to leave soon. Unwilling to extricate himself from the hug, and also unsure how to.

“I want to miss you.” Trevelyan was finally the one to pull back, eyes dark and clouded. “If I don’t miss you then I might have to kill myself.”

“…Rather dramatic.”

“You told me you liked drama.”

“I told you I like _watching_ drama.”

“Then I will wait until you are _watching_.” A sick smile had begun to play out on his face, before he looked up to the boat and paled, voice weak again. “Promise you’ll write.”

Dorian reached out to straighten his black jacket, running his thumb over its decorative gold buttons. “I just did, didn’t I?”

“Promise again.”

He hesitated, glancing around quickly, before pressing a hasty kiss to his cheek. “I promise.”

That seemed to satisfy him, though it did nothing for the tangled mess of vipers in Dorian’s own stomach. Behind him he could hear shouts, calls for disengaging from the dock, and he abruptly pulled away. “—I have to go.”

“Alright, alright. Go. Before I—before I tie you up and run you back to Skyhold.”

Maker help him, that made him laugh, even though he was pretty sure he was being serious. Dorian kissed him again one more time on the lips, breathed in the smell of minty elfroot on his breath, and then had to run to make it before the ship set off.

He spent nearly the whole ride back to Minrathous vomiting and wobbling about on deck, to the amusement of the crew and disgust of the other passengers. When he arrived he got back in contact with associates he hadn’t seen in years, false friends who welcomed him warmly and insisted they “hadn’t believed the rumors one jot”, and one or two rare real ones who were glad to see him back and angrily asked him where he’d been.

Frankly, he hadn’t realized he _had_ real ones until then.

He did not make any contact with his family. Though eventually a prim, carefully worded letter from his father arrived congratulating him on his safe return to Tevinter, Dorian did not respond and nothing further arrived at his door.

His mornings were consumed by meetings with Maevaris, strategizing and studying for putting his money where his mouth was when it came to reform and dodging her questions whenever they came up. The questions served as a bit of an unhealthy wedge between them for a time, but it was nothing that a common enemy couldn’t solve.

His afternoons were consumed with study, sharpening his magical knowledge with what he had learned down South. The time magic had unfortunately gotten as far as it would ever go with the Breach well and truly closed, but that wasn’t such a bad thing. There were other fields that called for his illustrious attention. Such as, for example, combating blood magic.

And, his nights were consumed with Trevelyan. Alternating between reading letters that he’d sent and poring over his own penmanship wondering if he was being too formal, too informal, if Leliana would find it amusing. Mostly, though, it was staring at a blank piece of parchment either wondering how to fit the ocean of words he needed to send on such a small sheet, or wondering what the hell he was supposed to even say in the first place.

They always flirted.

Always expressed hope for the others’ endeavors.

Always were cordial.

Always promised to visit.

 

They didn’t see each other again for two years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in my ‘canon’ version of things, Dorian stays with the Inquisition until Trespasser. But then, he and Trevelyan have the chance to develop a friendship first before falling in love, and have a better tested and longer relationship. Versus these two, who have only just discovered what it is they have together.
> 
> \--Have to admit that I'm running out of steam, but I should have enough to wrap up the epilogue.


	18. Trespassing

When Trevelyan saw Dorian at the Exalted Council, the first expression on his face was a grin. If he were capable of choosing, he would have started with the grim, no-nonsense look that he’d been wearing through the whole Council so far, the one he quickly forced himself to adopt after he realized he was smiling like an idiot. But he was not, and so there it was for the world to see.

Dorian had been anxious about how he would be received, tension coiled in his belly like a poisonous serpent, and that silly grin had done wonders to dispel it. “Inquisitor!”

He opened his arms like he was greeting an old friend, even if that wasn’t an accurate description for what they were.

The smile once more tugged on Trevelyan’s lips.

“How long has it been? --Don’t actually tell me, I despise feeling old.”

“Two years,” he said, a wicked expression now on his face.

“Oh you spiteful, _spiteful_ man,” Dorian shot back, showing off that his teeth were perfect as always.

Though they both longed to talk more, Trevelyan did have other diplomats he had to make nice with. By the time he was through kissing ass and suppressing the urge to shank a few of them, Dorian had placed himself near a charming little fountain, watching the proceedings around him with his dark, hungry eyes. It took everything he had not to run over.

Before he could get much in the way of a greeting Dorian remarked, “I see you have elected not to slit your throat once you’ve entered my sight. Does that mean you missed me, Inquisitor?”

Trevelyan tilted his head a little bit, brows twitching. He was attempting not to smile again, and only somewhat successful. “Maybe.”

“Maybe, he says.”

 

_“Why you silly thing, are you **crying** about the ending to an Antivan opera?”_

_“No! –Fuck!” Everything had been going fine until Dorian had the misfortune to ask him about where he’d been with Josephine that evening._

_“Are you sure? Because this looks an awful lot like it.”_

_“I’m not crying!” Trevelyan sobbed through his gloves. “I don’t know what this is! I didn’t even cry when my father died!”_

_There was a moment where Dorian said absolutely nothing, lips pursed, before gently taking Trevelyan’s hands away from his face. “Perhaps this is merely to compensate for all the times in your life you were a cold-hearted bastard.”_

_“F-fuck you.”_

_Dorian gave a wistful sigh. “Yes, the evening had seemed to be headed in that general direction.” The mangled laughter the remark provoked was abominable under all the tears, and then Dorian gave a real sigh. “It didn’t even sound particularly sad. The two lovers still got together in the end, didn’t they?”_

_“ **Yes.”** Trevelyan’s nose was running now, and he fumbled with his handkerchief as he spoke. “They sacrificed everything they had to be with each other. And they were happy anyway. That’s how much they loved one another, even after everything they put each other through. That—that kind of--”_

_He interrupted himself with another fit struggling to hold back tears._

_“I’ve never **had** that, Dorian. I’ve never—”_

_Hands on his face, lips against his mouth. A hot flush of breath as he heard, hissed, “Never had it? What does that make us? --Maker, if I’d known you were going to turn into such an incorrigible sap during my absence I would have sought for this appointment sooner.”_

_"I missed you.” He said the words in a choked sob, pulling Dorian close enough that they were practically crushed and holding himself together with the pressure. In a clearer, stronger voice he affirmed, grinning through the tears, “I missed you.”_

 

“So, Tevinter Ambassador, is it?”

Dorian’s eyes sparkled. “Oh yes. I’m told my father pushed for it, though the Imperium made no objection. It’s quite clever, you see.”

“Not that I’m objecting—I’m very pleased at anything that allows you to be here now—” As Trevelyan leaned on the bench, Dorian smirked up at him. “But how is it clever? No offense Dorian, but you’re hardly the first person I would think of as. Well. Any sort of diplomat.”

Dorian’s smirk darkened. “Very hurtful, Trevelyan. Think of it in these terms: Tevinter gets to send their pariah far away from their precious Magisterium, and they get the added bonus of making it seem like they don’t care what happens with the Inquisition at this council.”

Trevelyan remained standing, though he longed to sit down beside him, if only to feel the press of Dorian’s body against his side. “I’m sure it’s very obvious, but explain to me why Tevinter would want to appear as though they don’t care?”

 

_"Absolutely not,” Dorian continued to protest, even as he let Trevelyan lead him out onto the dance floor. “Have you forgotten you’re trying to keep them from dismantling you?”_

_He was treated to a flash of sharp teeth, an arm tightening around his waist. “You’ve danced with me before. And you were actually trying to kill me, then.”_

_“A waltz on a secluded balcony is one thing. This is—Fasta vass!” Trevelyan pushed him along in an aggressive castle walk, eyes flashing. Whispers became audible from the swirling couples around them, the press of eyes. A soft note of delight snuck into his voice. “Dancing with the scary Magister.”_

_“I don’t care if they see us,” Despite the more frantic pace they both matched each other’s steps skillfully, though this time Trevelyan made no allowance for Dorian to steal the lead from him. It was not like the more courtly promenade of the Orlesians, nor was it the rustic hopping of the Fereldans. It was intimate and deceptively frantic, lacking in artifice but making up for it in quick precision. “If I want to dance with the ex-Venatori that’s pretty as **sin** , I will. I will show you off to everyone.”_

_Dorian could not fight the flush on his cheeks. “Inquisitor, you flatter me.”_

_“It’s only flattery if it’s a lie.”_

_“…And what of the other matter? With the…Qunari?” Said in a low murmur, something that could be mistaken as a sweet nothing by the other dancers._

_"We’re moving soldiers into the palace to maintain security.” Trevelyan returned, a ghost of the whisper as he turned them around, his smile growing stiff and fixed. “Josephine’s not pleased.”_

_Dorian huffed breathily, moving one of his hands to the nape of Trevelyan’s neck. “Your Antivan diplomat? No, I can’t imagine she is.”_

_“It’s just like nobles to get put out by the color of the shield you use to block enemy arrows.” This time a growl._

_“It’s more they’re concerned that you’re going to use the shield to bash their heads in when the danger’s passed.”_

_“I don’t deny, I have thought about it.”_

_“And this is why, for the first time in history, Tevinter, Orlais, and Fereldan all agree on something.”_

 

“I suppose I would be offended if it wasn’t perfectly consistent.” Well, in truth, he was a little offended. But being able to anticipate it did take the sting out of the proceedings. “We clean up their messes for them—Tevinter in particular—and their response isn’t gratitude but fear. I have no desire to take over their countries. That would be far more headache than it’s worth.”

“It’s just the way of the world, Alexiel.” Dorian’s voice was cool as he sat, one leg crossed over the other and his hands resting on his knee. But there was something sad in his eyes. “It doesn’t matter how much good you do. All they care about is whether or not they’re in charge. The only way to fend off the vultures is make sure you have the biggest stick.”

That couldn’t go unremarked upon. “Yes, well, my _stick_ is enormous.”

 “ _Maker._ ” Dorian just barely avoided messing up his mustache as he stifled his laughter, Trevelyan grinning broadly at the result. “You’ve been spending time with your crude elf friend, I can tell.”

_“No, don’t tell me. I know exactly what you’re going to say.”_

_Dorian was waiting for Trevelyan inside his rooms after he had finished making nice with a gaggle of Orlesian twits, pacing the floor and brows creased in thought._

_“Well, don’t say that.” Trevelyan moved to sit down, working on loosening his constrictive jacket. “Now I want to say something you can’t predict. Like…did you know that Varric is Viscount of Kirkwall now?”_

_“Even if I was somehow able to successfully reproduce the construction methods that have been lost for **centuries** —” Dorian continued on, heedless of the man’s chattering, “There’s no guarantee that they won’t be misused the same way that they are now. That we won’t have armies making targeted strikes against weak points, only instead of magic-phobes it’ll be lunatics like the Venatori claiming them for Tevinter.”_

_Trevelyan had snagged a small cake from a passing server in the gardens outside. He chose to eat it then, watching Dorian pad across the floor in thought._

_“It’s foolish of me to even **think** about something so ripe for abuse, something so unlikely to produce fruit even if it wasn’t, and yet—and yet I—” He glanced over, brow furrowing. “—What in Andraste’s name is that?”_

_Trevelyan looked down at the cake. “I thought it was black licorice flavor. It…is not.”_

_“Why are you eating it?”_

_He shrugged. “Dorian, if you had an Eluvian in your quarters I could come and visit you whenever I wished instead of having to content myself with just your voice.”_

_Dorian practically fell down on the couch next to him, fingers on his forehead. He looked a little green._

_“Not that I wish to imply our relationship should take precedence over the safety of the world.”_

_“More like outright state it.”_

_“Yes, exactly.”_

_They sat there in silence as Trevelyan polished off the cake, briefly hesitating before licking the frosting and crumbs off his gloves._

_"If not that,” he began, trailing a thumb over Dorian’s shoulder. “I was talking with Sera about an offer she’s made to me. And I was wondering if there are Red Jennies in Minrathous.”_

 

“…And what of the elven apostate? You…wrote that your spymaster uncovered something new?”

“…Uncovered something old, more like.” Trevelyan’s demeanor cooled, though not as severely as Dorian might have expected given his malaise of two years earlier. “The little village that he claimed to be from…It’s a ruin. Dating back to before Ancient Tevinter, in fact.”

“A ruin?” Dorian’s brow furrowed. “So he lied to you? …Hardly surprising, but still unpleasant I suppose.”

Trevelyan shrugged, mouth twisting as though he was sick. “…I’m more worried about the possibility that he wasn’t necessarily lying.”

 

_Dorian was on the verge of breaking the Eluvian in his desperate bid to open it when Trevelyan suddenly fell through._

_He didn’t see what was wrong at first. All he knew was that he was having trouble standing, feeling the man’s entire weight on him at once. It was all he could do to collapse to his haunches without completely toppling over._

_“It was Solas.”_

_Trevelyan’s voice was hoarse, so much so that Dorian almost thought he’d imagined hearing him speak. He pulled back. “What?—What was Solas?”_

_The other man started giggling. Softly, at first, easy to mistake for panicked gasping._

_“Alexiel?”_

_He didn’t look injured. Not on first glance. There was even a bit more color in his face than normal, uniform unbloodied and intact. The only indication that anything was wrong was the sweat sticking his hair to his forehead, and the fact that he seemed caught in a wave of uncontrollable mirth._

_“Boss?” The Iron Bull took a few steps forward, axe clutched loosely in his hand. “What’s wrong with him?”_

_“I—I don’t—” Dorian lightly slapped Trevelyan’s face, which only made his giggles rise in volume and pitch. Lips pulled tight, almost choking. “I don’t know why he’s—”_

_He noticed it then, as he loosened his grip. The way that Trevelyan’s sleeve was hanging limply from the elbow down. When he reached for it, he felt empty air inside._

_“Where is your arm?” he asked dumbly._

_Tears streaking down his face, Trevelyan laughed, and laughed, and laughed._

 

“—It seems our time to chat has reached an end for now. Luckily,” Dorian moved to stand, his finery swaying a little in the light breeze as he offered his hand. “This ambassadorship is a token appointment. Whatever madness transpires here, you may call on me as you like.”

Trevelyan offered him a crooked grin, taking the hand in his and lightly pressing a kiss to his palm.

“Don’t think I won’t.”

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am bad at commentary, but as this is the longest fic I’ve ever written I think I should say something at least.
> 
> Way more of me got poured into this fic than I had ever intended at the start--I'm pleased with how it came out (even if looking back on it there’s a lot of things I want to expand on or explore differently), and I hope everyone has had a good time with it.
> 
> I don’t think I have another one of these in me, at least for a long while. This took quite a lot of both time and creative energy, and it’s not even as ambitious as I sort of wish it was. I have a lot of my own, original creative projects I’ve got on the backburner that I’ve been neglecting, and now that this is wrapped up (hopefully decently), they’re calling to me again.
> 
> I still have 15-odd fics started (mostly about Trevelyan and Dorian although there’s a couple that aren’t), however if I ever get those done it’s just gonna be something I can do in a couple afternoons instead of spanning several months.
> 
> That being said, this was a lot of fun. I’ve never written anything this long before, ever. It’s a bit of a milestone for me. Thank you so much to everyone who read through the whole thing.


End file.
